NASA Firms

Displays a world map overlaid with infra-red data from one or more satellites, some, but not all of which may represent heat from fires and explosions.

URL

https://firms2.modaps.eosdis.nasa.gov/map/

VIEWING DIFFERENT SATELLITES' DATA AND ADJUSTING THE TIME PERIOD DISPLAYED USING THE FIRMS INTERFACE We acknowledge the use of data and/or imagery from NASA's Fire Information for Resource Management System (FIRMS) (https://earthdata.nasa.gov/firms), part of NASA's Earth Science Data and Information System (ESDIS).

Description

It is important to know the geographical context for the area you are researching in order to be able to interpret infra-red satellite data appropriately. NASA FIRMS includes an inferred "Type" category for hotspot pixels from its VIIRS satellites: - Presumed vegetation fire = 0 - Active volcano = 1 - Other static land source = 2 - Offshore detection = 3

FIRMS (Fire Information for Resource Management System) aims to distribute NRT (Near Real-Time) active fire data, primarily for the purposes of resource management. It can be repurposed for Open Source investigation, particularly around military action and environmental change.

For example, the NASA FIRMS infra-red satellite sensor data has been used for geolocation, verification, war attack monitoring, frontline/troop movement estimates, forest fire monitoring, bushfire monitoring and war frontline tracking, amongst other things.

Use Cases for NASA FIRMS with Input Data, Output Data and Data Input Options...(Click each tab to see further information)

  • Location (latitude, longitude) MULTIPLE LOCATION SELECTION IS POSSIBLE

  • Date

  • Time

  • Time Period

  • Filter Selections: Satellite Name

  • Filter Intensity Level

Example Imagery Relating to A Selection of Significant Natural and Man-made Instances where Infra-Red Radiation Was Detected

Cover

VOLCANIC ERUPTION AREA, ICELAND Q2 2010 Intensity: Max>1000MW

Boundary: Varying Often

Duration: Months

Type: 1 (active volcano)

Cover

GRENFELL FIRE AREA, LONDON 14/06/2017

Intensity: Max <10MW Boundary: Relatively static Duration: 2-3 days

Type: 0 (Presumed vegetation fire)

Cover

PORT TALBOT STEELYARD, WALES 2010

Intensity: Max=11MW

Boundary: Relatively static Duration: Years

Types: 2 (static land source) & 3 (offshore)

These images show the variety of I-R sources which researchers will encounter & need to interpret. (Imagery from NASA's Fire Information for Resource Management System FIRMS )

The Data

The NASA FIRMS main data sources are radiometry equipment aboard orbiting satellites including:

  • MODIS (Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer) aboard the Aqua satellite and the Terra satellite

  • VIIRS (Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite aboard three satellites: S-NPP, NOAA 20 and NOAA 21 (formally known as JPSS-1 and JPSS-2)).

NASA FIRMS is a very ‘fast’ service - data is usually uploaded within 3 hours of capture.

The data from these satellites can be viewed in NASA FIRMS, but is also available as an overlay layer in NASA Worldview, and as downloads or alerts in different formats: *.shp, *.kml, *.txt and *.wms.

The different satellites connected to NASA FIRMS have different sensor resolutions, so MODIS carries a coarse sensor where fire is represented in squares of 1km x 1km, whereas VIIRS has a finer sensor where fire is represented in squares of 375m x 375m. Thus more accurate location comes from the finer sensor, i.e. VIIRS.

SELECTING SATELLITE SOURCES FROM TOP RIGHT MAP MENU, WITH A COMPARISON OF SATELLITE RESOLUTIONS (Images from NASA FIRMS)

The size of the fire on the ground may be smaller than the size of the entire pixel in NASA FIRMS which indicates its presence. The location of the fire is within the area covered by the pixel, but it is not necessarily in the centre and it is not possible to determine a more accurate location than this within NASA FIRMS

The orbits of different satellites can be followed using the OrbTrack app

Time As A Variable

The ability for the user to select a time period, using a horizontal slider across the bottom of the screen, or a menu calendar, is very powerful for analysis. The radio buttons labelled TODAY, 24 HOURS OR 7 DAYS filter the data according to the length of the time period of data capture.

TIME PERIOD BUTTONS AND CALENDAR OPTION
DATE PERIOD CALENDAR BAR ACROSS BOTTOM OF SCREEN

Different Properties of Fire

Metrics such as confidence value and FRP value are assigned to map squares.

  • Confidence value is a measure of the likelihood of fire, either on a high-nominal-low scale or a 0 to 100 % scale.

  • FRP (Fire Radiative Power) is a measure of the power of the radiation in MegaWatts. The largest fires seen in recent OSINV research have reached around 500MW. FRP depicts the pixel-integrated fire radiative power in megawatts (MW) for both VIIRS and MODIS satellites. https://www.earthdata.nasa.gov/faq/firms-faq#ed-fire-on-ground

Viewing Hotspots Over Time

USING NASA FIRMS TO VIEW FIRE DATA OVER A SPECIFIED TIME PERIOD IN A UKRAINIAN WAR ZONE (Imagery from NASA FIRMS )

Viewing Hotspots Close Up At Pixel Level

LEFT MOUSE CLICK (FIRMLY) ON PIXELS AT HIGH ZOOM GIVES A CIRCLE OF ANALYSIS AND PIXEL DATA ACQUISITION DETAILS (Imagery from NASA FIRMS )

Pixel data details displayed for the selected area include location, brightness, scan, track, acquire time, satellite name, confidence, FRP and day/night\

AVAILABLE DATA FOR EACH FIRE PIXEL FOR MODIS SATELLITES, THE VIIRS SATELLITES ALSO HAVE A FIRE CATEGORY FIELD

The Interface

There are a large number of user selection menus available to filter data, configure views, etc., and they are arranged in a hierarchy structure, which can be confusing to navigate:

NAVIGATING THE NASA FIRMS INTERFACE

NASA FIRMS permits multiple location selection for searches

Cost

Level of difficulty

NASA FIRMS data is well-presented and the interface is not difficult to use at basic level. The number of different features which are available, but hidden amongst multiple menus, can be daunting. The difficulty rating reflects this and the challenges in interpreting FIRMS data in a realistic manner.

Requirements

NASA FIRMS can be used without an account or provision of any data up front. However, for services such as fire alerts, users must provide an email.

Determining the Most Appropriate Source of Fire Data for A Research Application - (click here to clarify the best sources...)

FIRMS sources of both NRT (near real time) and standard fire data are:

  • Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) from the Terra and Aqua platforms

  • Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) (375m) from the Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (Suomi NPP), NOAA-20, and NOAA-21 platforms

It is important to cite exact data sources in scientific publications and to be sure the data source used is the most appropriate for the application by referencing difference between NRT and standard fire data and MODIS Fire User Guides

Limitations

Accuracy: Care must be taken in the interpretation of NASA FIRMS data. The satellites involved do not take direct photographs, but rather measure radiation, and the radiation data is used to generate imagery.

Sources of Misinterpretation include Reflections, Industrial Sources, Cloud and Tree Cover and Volcanic Activity. (Click arrow for more detail...)

  • Hotspots visible on the map may not be fires, they can also be high IR readings from metal structures reflecting heat or a very hot desert terrain or industrial sources such as cement industry kilns.

  • Smoke plumes carrying hot material into the air can register as fire edges on VIIRS, which is particularly responsive to heat sources at night time.

  • Cloud cover and tree canopies can hide fires, and if the satellite passes over a fire when it is at its weakest, it may not be visible as some fires are too weak to register (called a “cold” fire).

  • Volcanic eruptions and flares from gas wells show up on FIRMS as indistinguishable from vegetation fires.

FIRMS is usually most valuable when used in conjunction with other tools, often to narrow down satellite imagery searches.

  • The resolution of FIRMS data, which varies according to the satellite source, means that one or multiple active fires can be contained in one pixel.

  • FIRMS will likely not register cooler or smaller fires and 100 metres squared is the smallest size of fire which would generally be detected.

  • FIRMS satellites may not be above an area of interest at the time of interest, so a thermal event can take place without being captured.

Dates For which Data Are Available: MODIS from Nov 2000, VIIRS from Jan 2012. (Click the arrow for more detail on 5 specific services and dates...)

Estimating a Burned area: It is not recommended to use active fire locations to estimate burned area...(Click the arrow for more detail)

...as determining burned areas to an acceptable degree of accuracy is not possible due to nontrivial spatial and temporal sampling issues. For some applications, however, acceptable accuracy can be achieved, although the effective area burned per fire pixel is not simply a constant, but rather varies with respect to several different vegetation and fire-related variables. See Giglio et al. (2006) for more information. See "Where can I get the MODIS burned area product?" Most recently, Harmonized Landsat Sentinel (HLS) false color composite imagery was included in FIRMS and these data can be helpful in estimating burned area (see FIRMS Blog post on adding HLS).

NB Algorithms have been adapted to avoid the effects of sun glint causing false alarms over highly reflective surfaces, e.g. metallic rooftops.

False Positive Fire Detection can occur when super-heated smoke plumes cause artefacts in night time detections OR when monthly mission calibration manoeuvres are carried out...(Click the arrow for more detail)

...Regular approximately monthly on-orbit mission calibration manoeuvres are conducted for both satellites to maintain performance. These involve briefly rolling the satellite over in orbit to view the moon, using it to calibrate the reflective solar bands of the sensor. Anomalous observation data is often collected as the satellite rolls back to point the sensor at the earth, see example:

&#xNAN;(Imagery from NASA FIRMS )

Ethical Considerations

Active fire data involves many ethical considerations, since it pertains to a highly destructive force which rapidly changes landscapes and environments and is available for the US and Canada in real-time and within 3 hours for the rest of the world.

Scenarios in which FIRMS data has geopolitical significance are feasible since fire can closely track military front lines in conflict zones.

NASA FIRMS data should be acknowledged through the appropriate citation: See https://www.earthdata.nasa.gov/faq/firms-faq#ed-citation.

Guide

Tutorials on FIRMS by NASA

Fire Data Academy features examples of analyzing and visualizing fire data using Google Colaboratory (Colab), Jupyter Notebooks, and Python

Bellingcat Website Article: Scorched Earth: Using NASA Fire Data to Monitor War Zones by Carlos Gonzales, October 4, 2022

YOUTUBE VIDEO ON USING NASA FIRMS FOR OPEN SOURCE RESEARCH BY CARLOS GONZALEZ OF BELLINGCAT

NASA Earthdata Tutorial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SSd7KnWN9CM

Volcanoes: There is a separate system for volcanoes and eruptions at http://modis.higp.hawaii.edu/ which has been validated for volcano detection, unlike MODIS and VIIRS (although they both do detect active volcanoes).

Tool provider

NASA (North American Space Agency) via: Sentinel Hub and Copernicus Browser

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Page Maintained By:-

Sophie Tedling.

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