Web Fire Mapper
To burn, wildfires require the right conditions — we call it the fire triangle, when fuels, oxygen and heat all become all available for ignition and fire spread. Combine dry fuels and low humidities, wind-driven oxygen, and warm burning periods and all that’s required for a wildfire is an additional ignition source.
In many parts of the world, naturally ignited fires (started mostly by lightning) have shaped wide swaths of the global landscape, as did the long tradition of human-ignited burning. Today, we suppress many lightning fires, leading in some regions to a fuel buildup. Globally, humans have surpassed lightning as the primary igniter; an estimated 90% of wildfires are human-caused. Fires are ignited for land-clearing, logging, or agricultural burning. Recreational visitors and smokers accidentally set fires and arsonists do so intentionally. Planned fires, sometimes referred to as prescribe fires, are applied to the land to manage fuels and habitat.
Whatever the cause, the Earth is a fire planet — as this Web Fire Mapper shows — and without locally based fire prevention and fire management, these fires threaten home, communities, economies, biodiversity, and the climate itself.
The map is updated hourly with satellite data distributed by FIRMS – Fire Information for Resource Management Systems with support from NASA. FIRMS is transitioning to join with a United Nations (UN) Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) program called the Global Fire Information Management System (GFIMS).
As you expore the data below or on the Fire Mapper site, note that some of the observed heat signatures may be related to industrial burning. Zoom in closer to make your own assessment. What’s burning? Where’s it burning? And how will we manage these fires?
