Fire Tracker
NASA FIRMS VIIRS fire anomaly detection — z-scores against a 7-day rolling baseline, with hex-level FRP detail.
What It Does
The Fire Tracker turns raw satellite fire detections into a three-tier spatial intelligence system. At the country level it answers where is fire anomalous right now? At the hex level it answers where exactly within that country? And at the individual detection level it answers what is physically there?
The platform compares current Fire Radiative Power against a 30-day rolling baseline and expresses the difference as a z-score — so a region that always burns (like the Amazon or Central Africa) only shows as anomalous when it burns significantly more than its own normal. A country at +3σ is not just on fire — it is on fire in a way that is statistically unusual for that country.
Data Source
NASA FIRMS VIIRS (Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite) — a polar-orbiting satellite sensor that detects thermal anomalies at 375m resolution. The Fire-Watcher background worker fetches new detections every 30 minutes and stores them in SQLite with three attached values per detection point: confidence level (High / Nominal / Low), Fire Radiative Power (FRP) in megawatts, and a day/night flag based on the satellite overpass time.
FRP (Fire Radiative Power) measures the rate of energy release from a fire in megawatts. A large industrial flare or a dense wildfire cluster can push FRP into the hundreds or thousands of megawatts. Iraq recently showed 2.1 GW total FRP across 450 detection points — the country drill lets you see exactly where those 450 points are concentrated.
Reading the Map
Choropleth mode — country z-score:
Hex mode — raw FRP per cell:
The legend changes automatically when hex mode activates. Colour now reflects the total Fire Radiative Power aggregated within each H3 cell — dark cells have low FRP, bright orange/red cells have high FRP concentration. Z-score context is no longer shown; you are looking at raw intensity, not deviation from baseline.
Controls
| Control | What it does |
|---|---|
| 24H / 7D / 30D | Changes the look-back window for detection aggregation and baseline comparison. 24H shows only recent detections; 30D gives the broadest view. |
| HIGH / NOM / LOW / ALL | Confidence filter — High = high-confidence satellite detection, Nominal = probable, Low = possible. ALL includes every detection point. |
| 🔥 HEX MODE badge | Appears in the map header automatically when you zoom past the hex threshold. Confirms the legend and click behaviour have switched. |
Country Drill
Click any country on the choropleth to open the country drill. This is not a stat panel — it is a spatial heat density render of every individual VIIRS detection point plotted within that country's boundary on a dark field. Detection points glow with intensity proportional to their FRP value. The country border is drawn as a single amber outline so every cluster reads with full spatial clarity.
This means you are not just told "Iraq has elevated fire activity" — you can see that the northern cluster is near Kirkuk, the southern bright spot is at the Basra coast, and the scatter of mid-country points maps to the agricultural belt between them.
The stats panel alongside the render shows: total detections, total FRP in gigawatts, mean FRP per detection point, high/nominal confidence count, 30-day baseline average FRP, baseline standard deviation, and the anomaly z-score. All four numbers together tell you whether you are looking at many small fires, a few intense ones, or something statistically unusual regardless of how it looks.
Open
Click any country on the choropleth. The drill opens immediately with the detection render and stats panel.
Read the render
Bright concentrated clusters indicate high-FRP areas. Sparse scatter indicates lower-intensity distributed activity. The country outline is the reference frame.
Read the stats
Total FRP in GW gives scale. Mean FRP/point separates a few intense fires from many small ones. Z-score tells you if this is normal for this country.
Time window
Use 24H / 7D / 30D to shift what detections are rendered. 24H shows the most recent overpass data; 30D shows accumulated context.
Exit
Click ← Back to Map or press Escape.
Hex Mode — Two Resolutions
Zooming past the first threshold (approximately map zoom level 5) switches from the country choropleth to an H3 res-5 hex grid — large cells covering roughly country-subdivision scale. Zoom further to res-7 for smaller sub-hexes covering a city-scale area. Both levels show aggregated FRP for all detections within that cell. The dual-slot rendering system cross-fades between resolutions as you zoom so the transition is seamless. The legend updates automatically at each level.
Hex Drill — Satellite Viewport
Click any hex in hex mode to open the hex drill. The headline stat is the cell's total FRP with an anomaly badge (Critical / Elevated / Normal). Below that: detection count, average and peak FRP, day/night split, confidence breakdown bar, and the H3 cell ID.
The defining feature of the hex drill is the interactive satellite viewport. The actual satellite base map loads with the H3 cell boundary rendered as a precise overlay. This is not a static thumbnail — you can pan and zoom the satellite imagery within the drill panel to see exactly what is physically present inside that hex.
A hex showing CRITICAL +3σ at 304 MW over an industrial coastal area in Kuwait looks very different when you zoom the satellite viewport and see a refinery complex inside the cell boundary. The FRP number tells you something is there. The satellite viewport tells you what it is.
Limits
- VIIRS passes are once or twice daily per location — there is a temporal gap between when a fire starts and when it is detected
- Confidence levels are satellite-assigned heuristics; Low-confidence detections may include industrial heat sources, not just fires
- The 30-day baseline means a region with persistent elevated fire activity may show a lower anomaly score than a new fire in a normally quiet area
- FRP aggregation in hex mode sums all detections in the cell — a single industrial flare can dominate the cell score
- The satellite viewport uses the map tile provider and requires a live connection; it reflects current imagery, not the moment of detection