Fire Data Sources

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Many sources of weather, terrain, and fuel data for initialization, assimilation, and verification are freely available through public sites, many in the form of files viewable in Google Earth. Fire ignition tim/location data and imagery of fire extent at later times for specific incidents is still generally in the form of custom datasets where research or suppression teams were available to collect it.

Fuel Maps

10-hr Dead Fuel Moisture

Live Fuel Moisture

Fire Ignition Time and Location Data

  • Custom

Fire Perimeters

Fire Detection

HDF File Information

HDF stands for Hierarchical Data Format, there are two current standards; HDF4 (.hdf extension) and HDF5 (.h5 extension). All of our sources for active fire data and geolocation data use HDF4, though this could change in the future.

Reading HDFs

Matlab uses 'hdfread' to read a dataset into an array, requires filename and the path to the relevant data inside the hdf file. Here's an example call:

fire_mask = hdfread('MOD14.A2016266.1505.006.2016266215413.hdf', '/fire mask')

Where the filename is 'MOD14.A2016266.1505.006.2016266215413.hdf' (more on the naming convention later), and the path inside the hdf to the firemask data is '/fire mask'

More on matlab hdf here https://www.mathworks.com/help/matlab/ref/hdfread.html

Python information: http://hdfeos.org/software/pyhdf.php

Useful links:


MODIS Data:

MOD14 Files:

Level 2 active fire data (750(?)m resolution) from the MODIS instrument on the Terra satellite (Aqua satellite also has a MODIS instrument, that fire data is under MYD14 with the same properties). Contains 4 fields important for our purposes:

  • fire_mask: Array containing sensor data for each pixel. Classes:
    • 0 missing input data
    • 1 not processed (obsolete)
    • 2 not processed (obsolete)
    • 3 non-fire water
    • 4 cloud
    • 5 non-fire land
    • 6 unknown
    • 7 fire (low confidence)
    • 8 fire (nominal confidence)
    • 9 fire (high confidence)
  • FP_latitude: Variable length vector (the number of pixels identified as firepixels) containing latitude of all firepixels in the mask.
  • FP_longitude: Variable length vector (the number of pixels identified as firepixels) containing longitude of all firepixels in the mask.
  • FP_confidence: Variable length vector (the number of pixels identified as firepixels) containing confidence of fire identification for each firepixel in the mask.

These can be found at: ftp://ladsweb.nascom.nasa.gov/allData/6/MOD14/

Example Filename: 'MOD14.A2016266.0615.006.2016266201759.hdf' ~200KB - 800KB

[Dataset name].A[Year][DayofYear].[24hrTime].[Collection number].[collection time?].hdf

(The files here are delivered in 5 minute intervals, and are organized by year, then by Julian Day Number (n corresponds to the nth day of the year).)

MOD03 Files:

Level 1 geolocation data from the MODIS instrument on the Terra satellite (Aqua satellite also has a MODIS instrument, that geolocation data is under MYD03 with the same properties). Contains 2 fields important for our purposes:

  • Latitude: Array (same size as fire_mask) containing the latitude of each pixel in the firemask
  • Longitude: Array (same size as fire_mask) containing the longitude of each pixel

These can be found at: ftp://ladsweb.nascom.nasa.gov/allData/6/MOD03/

Example Filename: 'MOD03.A2016266.2210.006.2016267050406.hdf' ~28MB - 32MB

[Dataset name].A[Year][DayofYear].[24hrTime].[Collection number].[collection time?].hdf

(The files here are delivered in 5 minute intervals, and are organized by year, then by Julian Day Number (n corresponds to the nth day of the year).)

VIIRS Data:

VNP14IMG_NRT files:

Level 2 active fire data (375m resolution) from the VIIRS instrument on the Suomi-NPP Satellite. Contains 4 fields important for our purposes:

  • fire_mask: Array containing sensor data for each pixel. Classes (Note: these are slightly different than the MOD14 fire mask classes):
    • 0 not-processed (non-zero QF)
    • 1 bowtie
    • 2 glint
    • 3 water
    • 4 clouds
    • 5 clear land
    • 6 unclassified fire pixel
    • 7 low confidence fire pixel
    • 8 nominal confidence fire pixel
    • 9 high confidence fire pixel
  • FP_latitude: Variable length vector (the number of pixels identified as firepixels) containing latitude of all firepixels in the mask.
  • FP_longitude: Variable length vector (the number of pixels identified as firepixels) containing longitude of all firepixels in the mask.
  • FP_confidence: Variable length vector (the number of pixels identified as firepixels) containing confidence of fire identification for each firepixel in the mask.

These can be found at: ftp://nrt3.modaps.eosdis.nasa.gov/allData/5000/VNP14IMG_NRT/

They are held behind a password wall, registration is easy at https://urs.earthdata.nasa.gov/users/new

Example Filename: 'VNP14IMG_NRT.A2016323.0748.001.hdf' ~ 0.5MB - 5MB

[Dataset name].A[Year][DayofYear].[24hrTime].[Collection number].hdf

(These files are delivered in 6 minute intervals, and are organized by year, then by Julian Day Number (n corresponds to the nth day of the year).)

NPP_IMFTS_L1 files:

Level 1 geolocation files (375m resolution) from the VIIRS instrument on the Suomi-NPP Satellite. Contains 2 fields important for our purposes:

  • Latitude: Array (same size as fire_mask) containing the latitude of each pixel in the firemask
  • Longitude: Array (same size as fire_mask) containing the longitude of each pixel

These can be found at: ftp://ladsweb.nascom.nasa.gov/allData/5000/NPP_IMFTS_L1/

No password this time.

Example Filename: 'NPP_IMFTS_L1.A2016323.0930.001.2016323192201.hdf' ~ 1GB (yikes!)

[Dataset name].A[Year][DayofYear].[24hrTime].[Collection number].[collection time?].hdf

(The files here are delivered in 6 minute intervals, and are organized by year, then by Julian Day Number (n corresponds to the nth day of the year).)

Algorithms, investigations, etc

This section will contain a discussion of the generation and structure of our files to be used with the wrfxpy

Tools and websites to help locate the data...?

To be continued...

Fire Location and Intensity Data

See Also

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