Active Fire Monitoring with Remote Sensing

Learning objectives

  • Understand how satellites detect active fires using thermal bands.
  • Access and visualize MODIS, GOES, and FIRMS fire datasets in Earth Engine.
  • Calculate burn severity using pre/post-fire imagery and NBR.
  • Build an interactive fire monitoring application.

Why it matters

Wildfires are increasing in frequency and intensity due to climate change. Remote sensing provides near real-time fire detection that helps emergency responders, land managers, and communities. After fires, satellite-derived burn severity maps guide ecosystem recovery efforts and help assess damage to infrastructure.

Active fire detections visualized in Google Earth Engine
MODIS active fire detections showing wildfire activity - the type of visualization you will create in this module.

Module overview

This case study walks you through a complete fire monitoring workflow, from understanding the physics of fire detection to building an interactive application. You will work with real fire data from the 2020 Bobcat Fire in California.

Part Topic What You'll Learn
Theory Fire Detection Physics How thermal sensors detect fire hotspots
Fire Datasets Data Sources MODIS, VIIRS, GOES, FIRMS data access
Case Study Bobcat Fire Real-world fire analysis example
Build an App UI Development Interactive fire monitoring dashboard

Quick win: view active fires

Run this code to see recent fire detections worldwide:

// Load MODIS active fire data (last 7 days)
var fires = ee.ImageCollection('MODIS/061/MOD14A1')
  .filterDate(ee.Date(Date.now()).advance(-7, 'day'), ee.Date(Date.now()))
  .select('FireMask');

// Create a maximum composite to show all fires
var fireMax = fires.max();

// Mask non-fire pixels and visualize
var fireMask = fireMax.gte(7); // Confidence >= 7
Map.addLayer(fireMask.selfMask(), {palette: ['orange', 'red']}, 'Active Fires');
Map.setCenter(-119.5, 34.5, 6); // California
print('Fire data loaded successfully!');

What you should see

Orange and red points indicating fire detections over the past week. Try zooming to different regions to explore global fire patterns.

Key terms

Active fire
A fire currently burning at the time of satellite overpass, detected by thermal anomalies.
Burn severity
The degree to which vegetation and soil are affected by fire, measured using spectral indices.
NBR (Normalized Burn Ratio)
A spectral index using NIR and SWIR bands to assess fire damage: (NIR - SWIR) / (NIR + SWIR).
FIRMS
Fire Information for Resource Management System - NASA's near real-time fire monitoring service.

Try it: Explore fire patterns

  1. Change the date range to look at fires from last summer (peak fire season).
  2. Zoom to Australia and observe fire patterns during their summer (December-February).
  3. Compare fire activity between the Northern and Southern hemispheres.

This module builds on

Next steps

Continue with the fire monitoring case study:

  1. Theory: How Fire Detection Works
  2. Fire Datasets in Earth Engine
  3. Case Study: The Bobcat Fire
  4. Building a Fire Monitoring App