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Fire Detects from the Moderate Resolution Imaging
Spectroradiometer (MODIS)

Satellite Services Division receives MODIS fire products from NOAA's MODIS Near Real Time Processing System, run by it's sister division -- the Information Processing Division. The MODIS instrument flies onboard the NASA TERRA and AQUA satellite, and the fire algorithm was developed by the MODIS Fire and Thermal Anomalies team.

The fire product recieved by SSD is in large (~13mb) HDF files. We extract the fire positions and confidence values and place them into comma-delimited tables that it can be easily read into a Geographic Information System (GIS) as table data.

Users should note:

• This data is generated by an automated algorithm and is placed on the web page in near-realtime. It has not been quality controlled. Validation efforts are only beginning. For a quality controlled product, users are referred to the Hazard Mapping System (HMS) product created by SSD satellite analysts.
• Fire locations represent the approximate location of the fire pixel and do not represent the actual fire size. The MODIS instantaneous field of view at nadir for the channels used to make the fire product is 1x1km, but the fire phenomena may be much smaller than that.
• We post this data as soon as we receive it, but the Near Real Time Processing System is not considered operational. We do not guarantee 24/7 access to this data at this time.
• If no fires are detected for a given pass, a file is not placed on the server.

The most recent MODIS fire detects, as well as the other layers that make up the HMS Fire and Smoke Product, can best be viewed through our SSD Fire Web-GIS page.

Download most current fire files (available in ASCII, GIS and graphic formats).

The recent fires identified by the MODIS fire product are shown below:

Contact Address: SSDFireTeam@noaa.gov