Canadian Wildland Fire Information System

Fire M3 Hotspots

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A hotspot is a satellite image pixel with infrared intensities typical of burning vegetation. A hotspot may represent one fire or be one of several hotspots representing a larger fire. Almost all hotspots indicate forest fires; however, not all fires can be identified from satellite images, usually because of cloud cover.

The Fire M3 hotspots are obtained from multiple sources:

  1. Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) imagery, courtesy of the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) National Environmental Satellite, Data and Information Service (NESDIS).
  2. Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) imagery, courtesy of the Department of Geography at the University of Maryland, and from the Active Fire Mapping Program, Remote Sensing Applications Center (RSAC), USDA Forest Service. (http://activefiremaps.fs.fed.us/index.php)
  3. Along Track Scanning Radiometer (ATSR) World Fire Atlas, courtesy of the European Space Agency.

More information about Fire M3 is available in Background Information.

Smoke Forecasts for Western Canada available at: http://www.bcairquality.ca/bluesky/.

Fire M3 maps and reports are updated daily from May through September.