See the fire.Follow the response.Anticipate its direction.

NASA’s reference service for global thermal anomalies, combining VIIRS, MODIS, Landsat and experimental geostationary layers with acquisition time, confidence and fire radiative power.

Clock and freshness

Global VIIRS and MODIS detections are normally available within 3 hours. Its WMS refreshes every 15 minutes without creating a new satellite pass.

Useful precision

VIIRS 375 m, MODIS 1 km and Landsat 30 m when that product is available; every point represents a sensor pixel.

Best use and main limit

The best public starting point for locating and dating thermal activity. Cloud, orbital gaps and false positives remain possible; a hotspot is not a flame line or burned perimeter.

What Fire Maps adds

Adds EFFIS and LSA SAF beside FIRMS, plus weather, spread, exposure and current or historical firefighting-aircraft tracks in one shareable view with visible acquisition clocks.

The JRC’s European system combining filtered active-fire detections, weather danger, supervised burned-area perimeters and fire severity.

Clock and freshness

Active fires: 6 updates per day, available 2–3 hours after acquisition. Burned areas: two complete European mosaics each day.

Useful precision

VIIRS 375 m and MODIS 1 km detections; selected perimeters derive from Sentinel-2 imagery at 20 m.

Best use and main limit

Europe’s main public reference for burned area, but layers run on different clocks. An empty map can also mean the map service is unavailable, not that no fire exists.

What Fire Maps adds

Keeps EFFIS beside raw FIRMS, geostationary FRP, wind, modeled spread, exposure and aerial response, while naming each layer’s clock and loading state.

Direct access to LSA SAF fire-radiative-power products, useful for animating whether thermal activity intensifies or declines during the day.

Clock and freshness

MSG-FRP publishes 15-minute slots with about 30 minutes of typical delay. MTG-FRP is a 10-minute demonstration product without an availability guarantee.

Useful precision

MSG: nominal 3 km at the sub-satellite point and coarser over France. MTG demonstration: nominally about 1 km.

Best use and main limit

The strongest public intraday intensity reading for Europe, but the interface is technical and the pixels are coarse. MTG characteristics are not an operational service guarantee.

What Fire Maps adds

Pairs the fast, coarse FRP rhythm with finer VIIRS and MODIS detections, burned-area context, weather and aircraft activity instead of leaving the reader alone with a raw WMS.

EUMETSAT imagery showing smoke, cloud, convection, pyrocumulus and infrared fire-temperature context around an incident.

Clock and freshness

Cadence depends on the selected satellite and layer; geostationary series support intraday animation.

Useful precision

Native scale of the selected product, generally kilometer-scale for geostationary views.

Best use and main limit

Excellent for explaining smoke and observation gaps, but it does not by itself provide a confirmed front or ready-to-use burned perimeter.

What Fire Maps adds

Adds clickable detections, source timestamps, burned-area context, weather and spread analysis, and aircraft response. EUMETView remains the stronger dedicated imagery and plume viewer.

Copernicus Data Space imagery for fine before-and-after comparison. Sentinel-2 SWIR composites reveal intact vegetation, burn scars and residual heat.

Clock and freshness

Sentinel-2 has a nominal 5-day constellation revisit. Publication timing varies; useful imagery also depends on the next clear overpass.

Useful precision

20 m for Sentinel-2 SWIR bands and 10 m for selected visible and near-infrared bands.

Best use and main limit

The best free fine-image reading after an overpass, not continuous tracking. Viewing is public, while animation and selected features require a free account; cloud, smoke and revisit gaps can delay a usable view.

What Fire Maps adds

Adds the hours-before and active-incident picture—thermal alerts, weather, exposure, roads and aircraft—while Copernicus Browser remains the finer post-overpass measurement tool.

A standardized global burned-area raster derived from Sentinel-3, designed to answer what burned since yesterday with a regular grid.

Clock and freshness

A daily product advertised as available the day after sensing.

Useful precision

Approximately 300 m, delivered as a burned-area raster rather than a live perimeter.

Best use and main limit

Reliable for consistent J+1 comparison, but too coarse for a parcel, road or active fire front.

What Fire Maps adds

Adds active detections, current weather and aerial response around the J+1 burned-area raster, while keeping each source’s native resolution and clock distinct.

A European emergency service producing expert-reviewed first estimates, event delineation, damage grading, reports and downloadable GIS data.

Clock and freshness

Only after activation by an authorized body, with overall delivery in hours to days and early situational reporting from roughly 4 hours after activation.

Useful precision

Varies with the source imagery; vector products can reach meter to decameter scale.

Best use and main limit

The best public expert-reviewed perimeter when an activation exists. There is no continuous coverage and no guarantee that a particular fire will be mapped.

What Fire Maps adds

Provides a continuously available public workspace before or without an activation, combining observed and modeled context with aircraft response. It does not replace EMS expert mapping.

NASA’s viewer for more than 1,200 products, able to animate smoke, cloud, reflectance, aerosols and thermal anomalies around a fire.

Clock and freshness

Geostationary imagery is offered in 10-minute increments for the past 90 days; other layers follow their satellites’ overpasses and publication chains.

Useful precision

From 375 m for selected VIIRS anomalies to several kilometers for geostationary imagery.

Best use and main limit

Excellent atmospheric and historical context, not an operational fire-front map. Freshness and resolution change greatly from one layer to another.

What Fire Maps adds

Turns selected NASA layers into a fire-specific reading with EFFIS and LSA SAF, explicit evidence types, wind, spread, exposure and aircraft tracks. Worldview remains broader for imagery exploration.

The worldwide counterpart to EFFIS, combining current situation, danger, burned areas and estimated emissions for international comparison.

Clock and freshness

Official documentation describes daily updates, with data generally available within one day.

Useful precision

VIIRS 375 m and MODIS 1 km detections, plus aggregated global burned-area and emissions products.

Best use and main limit

Useful for worldwide context and emissions, but less fresh and less detailed than EFFIS for European incident analysis. Emissions are modeled estimates.

What Fire Maps adds

Adds a France-and-Europe incident workflow, official French layers and firefighting-aircraft histories on one map. GWIS remains stronger for global emissions comparison.

A highly accessible public layer combining multiple satellites and, where available, official ground information into generalized wildfire areas and crisis notices.

Clock and freshness

Google publishes no stable acquisition-to-display latency for each event. Freshness depends on satellite passes and available official information.

Useful precision

Generalized zones designed for public reading, without direct access to the source pixels or measurements.

Best use and main limit

Excellent as a first public view, poor for analysis: acquisition time, fire radiative power and detailed confidence are not exposed. Google states that the layer can underestimate the true extent.

What Fire Maps adds

Exposes acquisition time, source identity, radiative power, confidence and native precision, then adds multiple fire sources, analytical layers and aircraft tracks beyond a generalized public alert.

A global map cross-referencing VIIRS fire alerts with tree cover, forest loss, concessions and protected areas.

Clock and freshness

Updated daily, with 24-hour, 48-hour, 72-hour and 7-day viewing windows.

Useful precision

375 m VIIRS alerts over forest layers with varying resolutions.

Best use and main limit

Strong environmental context, but daily updates are too slow for active-incident tracking. It redistributes NASA alerts rather than making independent detections.

What Fire Maps adds

Adds intraday thermal sources, explicit acquisition clocks, weather, spread, exposure and aircraft response. Global Forest Watch remains stronger for forest-cover and concession analysis.

Overlays active-fire points with wind, gusts, humidity, aerosols, smoke and carbon monoxide to explore atmospheric context.

Clock and freshness

No guaranteed latency is published for the fire layer. Hotspots depend on FIRMS, while wind and smoke models have separate run times.

Useful precision

Fire points inherit FIRMS resolution; weather-grid scale varies with the selected model.

Best use and main limit

Useful for likely plume direction and weather conditions, but not an independent detector or complete spread model. The fire layer is no fresher than FIRMS.

What Fire Maps adds

Keeps each fire observation’s real acquisition time, combines several detection and perimeter sources, and adds curated current and historical firefighting-aircraft operations. Windy remains a richer general weather viewer.

A simple public satellite and weather map for browsing cloud, smoke, storms and heat spots in one screen.

Clock and freshness

Updated daily; the service explicitly states that hotspot detections are delayed by several hours.

Useful precision

Generalized heat spots rather than a precise fire-front perimeter.

Best use and main limit

Easy to read but unsuitable for following an active front. The publisher says the hotspots are not live, have limited accuracy and must not protect life or property.

What Fire Maps adds

Adds source-level timestamps, confidence, radiative power, native precision, multiple fire products and aircraft response instead of a daily generalized heat-spot layer.

Ready-to-use Esri layers that combine FIRMS-derived fire observations with roads, population and local GIS data.

Clock and freshness

The VIIRS relay queries FIRMS regularly, but displayed observations still inherit FIRMS acquisition times and roughly three-hour global availability.

Useful precision

Usually 375 m for VIIRS and 1 km for MODIS, inherited from the published source.

Best use and main limit

Convenient for composing an Esri map, not an independent observation. Frequent feed polling must not be mistaken for a new satellite acquisition.

What Fire Maps adds

Provides a ready-to-use free fire workspace with timestamps, source semantics and aircraft response, without requiring the reader to assemble an Esri project. Living Atlas remains more extensible for GIS authors.

A French FIRMS-based interface with nearby municipalities, fire-radiative-power sorting, duration, confidence and intensity filters, plus clear explanations of false positives.

Clock and freshness

Inherits NASA FIRMS global availability, normally within 3 hours of satellite observation, even if the web page itself refreshes more often.

Useful precision

VIIRS 375 m or MODIS 1 km depending on the detection, with municipality context added by the interface.

Best use and main limit

One of the clearest French public interfaces, but it makes no independent observation and cannot be fresher than FIRMS. Industrial and agricultural heat sources can appear.

What Fire Maps adds

Adds non-FIRMS sources, geostationary rhythm, weather, spread, exposure and current or historical firefighting-aircraft tracks in a shareable workspace. incendieencours.fr remains a simpler French alert list.

A French nonprofit platform combining a fire map, danger map, archive and community reports with local information.

Clock and freshness

Cadence varies across danger maps, archives and community reports; no uniform detection delay is guaranteed.

Useful precision

Varies by source; a report or marker is not a validated perimeter.

Best use and main limit

Useful local and French-language context, but the information mixes different sources and time frames. It is not an operational emergency-services map.

What Fire Maps adds

Adds synchronized source clocks, observed, modeled and deduced labels, and multi-source operational layers. It complements rather than replaces the association’s local reporting and vigilance.

A French public consultation map designed to make reported wildfire incidents easier to locate.

Clock and freshness

Depends on aggregated sources and publications; no consistent observation delay is documented.

Useful precision

Marker or aggregated-source level, without a guaranteed operational outline.

Best use and main limit

It does not produce an independent fire measurement. The origin, timestamp and nature of every item must be checked before interpretation.

What Fire Maps adds

Adds documented provenance, acquisition clocks, sensor precision and cross-checking with weather, exposure and aircraft response, reducing ambiguity around a lone reported marker.

Combines geolocated reports, camera feeds, FIRMS and local context to bring community and visual observations together.

Clock and freshness

Reports and camera images appear when submitted or received; there is no uniform cadence or nationwide latency guarantee.

Useful precision

Report position or camera field of view, without a guaranteed fire perimeter.

Best use and main limit

Potentially fast local signal, but camera coverage is uneven and reports require confirmation. Community evidence never replaces emergency-service validation.

What Fire Maps adds

Adds nationwide satellite and model coverage, source timestamps and aircraft histories. PyroWatch’s camera and community reports remain valuable local evidence and still require confirmation.

A nonprofit open-source early-detection network using four to five high-resolution cameras per watchtower and local machine-learning analysis, deployed with several French fire and rescue services.

Clock and freshness

Images are captured at regular intervals and analyzed locally. No nationwide public cadence or operational feed is promised.

Useful precision

Camera field of view and a geolocated alert around equipped watchtowers; coverage is local rather than nationwide.

Best use and main limit

Potentially earlier than a satellite pass where deployed, but operational supervision is reserved for participating emergency services and coverage exists only around equipped sites.

What Fire Maps adds

Fire Maps is publicly accessible beyond fixed camera sites and adds satellite, weather, spread and aircraft context. It does not replace Pyronear’s potentially earlier ground detection where deployed.

Publishes wildfire danger, warnings and forest closures for several departments in southern France.

Clock and freshness

Follows the cadence of official warnings, bulletins and forest-access decisions, not a fire-detection cadence.

Useful precision

Forest area, department or published administrative decision.

Best use and main limit

Useful before travel and for respecting local restrictions, but geographic coverage is partial and it does not show the position or progression of an active front.

What Fire Maps adds

Adds current fire evidence, likely dynamics and aerial response across a wider area. FOSIVA remains authoritative for the local closures and warnings it publishes.

Météo-France’s official wildfire-danger map, based on weather forecasts and vegetation dryness.

Clock and freshness

Published daily for tomorrow and the following day.

Useful precision

Department-level danger, not the location of an active fire.

Best use and main limit

The official tool for anticipating favorable fire conditions, not following an incident. Météo-France explicitly says it reports neither current nor certain future fires.

What Fire Maps adds

Places the official danger forecast beside current thermal observations, wind, spread scenarios and aerial response, while keeping forecast danger clearly distinct from observed fire.

France’s official natural-risk portal for understanding a municipality’s exposure, prevention rules and reference wildfire vocabulary.

Clock and freshness

Administrative updates, with no emergency feed or real-time cadence.

Useful precision

Municipality, regulatory zones and available risk documents.

Best use and main limit

A knowledge and prevention service. It shows neither current fires, their likely direction nor emergency-response activity.

What Fire Maps adds

Adds the evolving incident picture—observations, modeled direction, exposure and aerial response—while Géorisques remains the official source for baseline risk and prevention documents.

France’s administrative wildfire database, with incident records from 2006 and searches by period, department, municipality and reported area.

Clock and freshness

The public historical database ends with the year before the current year.

Useful precision

Municipality-level granularity and one record per incident, without a live front geometry.

Best use and main limit

The official reference for past records, never the current season. It contains administrative summaries rather than live fire positions.

What Fire Maps adds

Adds the current season, live and 24-hour observations, source clocks and aircraft histories. BDIFF remains the administrative reference for validated past incidents.

A worldwide community receiver map that can reveal repeated circuits, water scoops and rotations of aircraft broadcasting a tracked ADS-B or Mode-S signal.

Clock and freshness

Positions appear as receivers obtain them. Frequency and delay vary with the aircraft, receiver density, terrain and local coverage.

Useful precision

Aircraft-specific positions when broadcast and received, with no direct fire-front geometry.

Best use and main limit

A fresh indirect view of aerial activity, not an official command source. Low aircraft can disappear and a missing transponder or receiver creates gaps; a track does not delineate the fire.

What Fire Maps adds

Filters the global traffic stream to a curated firefighting fleet, preserves trajectory history, derives labeled mission events and overlays the fire evidence those aircraft may be responding to.

A popular flight tracker where repeated circuits by water bombers, helicopters and coordination aircraft can indicate where tracked aerial resources are working.

Clock and freshness

Positions change as the network receives them; cadence, delay and available history depend on coverage and the selected access plan.

Useful precision

Aircraft position when its signal is received; fuller history and detail depend on access level.

Best use and main limit

Accessible aerial context, but not every aircraft is visible, especially at low altitude. Absence on screen proves no absence in the field.

What Fire Maps adds

Combines a curated firefighting fleet, live and 24-hour tracks, mission and country filters, inferred drops, scoops and orbits, and fire evidence in one free workspace. Coverage gaps still remain.

A commercial service combining detection, spread monitoring, final damage mapping and a wildfire-risk model.

Clock and freshness

Publisher claim: hotspot detection every 10 minutes and near-real-time spread visualization.

Useful precision

Publisher claim: final 10 m damage maps several days after the fire and a 50 m risk model.

Best use and main limit

Potentially broad commercial workflow, but public performance figures come from the publisher and were not independently verified. Actual latency, coverage and commitments belong in the contract.

What Fire Maps adds

Provides a free, source-transparent public reading with official and open layers, acquisition clocks and aircraft response. It does not claim to beat Kayrros’s contractual speed or final 10 m products.

A commercial service using nanosatellites with thermal-infrared cameras and onboard processing for early wildfire detection.

Clock and freshness

Publisher claim: a 30-minute revisit with the expanding satellite network and processing reduced from hours to minutes.

Useful precision

Exact thermal resolution was not published in the reviewed primary source.

Best use and main limit

Thermal coverage can complement public satellites, but operational constellation size, coverage and exact resolution were not established by the reviewed public page. Claims remain unverified.

What Fire Maps adds

Adds a free public multi-source workspace, traceable acquisition times, models and aerial response. It does not replace OroraTech’s proprietary thermal constellation or unverified commercial guarantees.

Commercial high-cadence optical imagery for closely examining a burn scar, comparing before and after and producing a detailed perimeter after an overpass.

Clock and freshness

Capture and delivery time depend on the product, available coverage, tasking and contract.

Useful precision

Fine optical imagery depending on the subscribed product; the applicable scale must be confirmed in the selected offer.

Best use and main limit

Fine post-event imagery rather than continuous thermal monitoring. Cloud, smoke, daylight, tasking and access rights determine whether a usable image exists.

What Fire Maps adds

Adds continuous thermal context, weather and spread analysis, and aircraft response before and between optical images. Planet remains the specialized source for contracted fine optical imagery.