Hazards / Satellite active-fire detections
NASA FIRMS VIIRS near-real-time active-fire detections in Georgia
NASA FIRMS publishes a rolling global 24-hour CSV of VIIRS thermal-anomaly detections that can be filtered to Georgia without credentials. The current file contained 26 detections in the broad Georgia bbox. Each point includes acquisition date/time, satellite, VIIRS brightness temperatures, fire radiative power, confidence, day/night flag and pixel footprint dimensions. A detection is a thermal anomaly at satellite-pixel scale, not a confirmed wildfire perimeter or damage report.
Provenance and access
How the data is reached
Unauthenticated 6.1 MB CSV download. FIRMS area API and archives require a free MAP_KEY, but the current global 24-hour CSV did not.
NASA Earth science data are openly available; retain NASA/FIRMS source acknowledgement and product citation. FIRMS warns against interpreting NRT data as authoritative incident confirmation.
VIIRS SNPP global 24-hour CSV
https://firms.modaps.eosdis.nasa.gov/data/active_fire/suomi-npp-viirs-c2/csv/SUOMI_VIIRS_C2_Global_24h.csv ↗- Method
- GET
- Format
- CSV
- Authentication
- None
FIRMS API documentation
https://firms.modaps.eosdis.nasa.gov/api/ ↗- Method
- GET
- Format
- HTML documentation
- Authentication
- MAP_KEY required for area API
Field-level detail
What is actually returned
VIIRS active-fire CSV row
One satellite thermal-anomaly detection.
| Field / path | Type | Null? | Example | Meaning | Freshness |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
latitude / longitude | decimal degrees | No | 41.522 / 46.13354 | Detection pixel center in WGS84 | live |
bright_ti4 | Kelvin number | No | 356.1 | VIIRS I-4 brightness temperature | live |
scan / track | kilometre numbers | No | 0.46 / 0.47 | Approximate pixel footprint dimensions across and along scan | reference |
acq_date / acq_time | YYYY-MM-DD / HHMM UTC | No | 2026-07-21 / 0926 | Satellite acquisition date and time | live |
satellite | code string | No | N | Observing satellite/platform code | reference |
confidence | enum string | No | nominal | Detection confidence category | live |
version | string | No | 2.0NRT | Algorithm/product version and NRT status | reference |
bright_ti5 | Kelvin number | No | 297.58 | VIIRS I-5 brightness temperature | live |
frp | MW number | No | 10.45 | Fire radiative power estimate | live |
daynight | D/N code | No | D | Day or night acquisition | reference |
Representative evidence
Sample records
Georgia-bbox VIIRS detection
Retrieved 2026-07-22 13:56 Asia/Tbilisi
latitude,longitude,bright_ti4,scan,track,acq_date,acq_time,satellite,confidence,version,bright_ti5,frp,daynight
41.522,46.13354,356.1,0.46,0.47,2026-07-21,0926,N,nominal,2.0NRT,297.58,10.45,DBoundaries
Reliability, caveats, and privacy
What held up
- The live global file was downloaded and parsed
- All 13 columns were present
- Acquisition time, confidence and FRP enable freshness and significance checks
What can go wrong
- Broad bbox includes border-adjacent parts of neighboring countries; apply a Georgia polygon for country-only results
- Point is a hot pixel, not a fire perimeter
- Cloud, smoke, scan gaps and revisit timing cause omissions
- Agricultural/industrial heat can produce detections
- NRT records can later be reprocessed
Cross-source possibilities
Ideas using this source
Source trail
Primary pages and documentation
https://firms.modaps.eosdis.nasa.gov/active_fire/- DocumentationFIRMS API documentation ↗
https://firms.modaps.eosdis.nasa.gov/api/ - DocumentationFIRMS data citations ↗
https://firms.modaps.eosdis.nasa.gov/content/acknowledgements