Another interesting Google Earth network link from those guys in Russia (see credits below). This time they have collected data from NASA and other sources to share with you interesting environmental data showing the status of global-wide fires which rage in various parts of the world throughout the year. The data was collected by NASA’s MODIS environmental satellites Terra and Aqua and superimposed on the NASA Blue Marble satellite images of the earth (more credits below). Each sample of data is for a 10-day period, and the Google Earth file can show you any 10-day period since the middle of year 2000 to the present.
So, our friend Valery35 from the Google Earth Community posted this new network link for Global Fires. Operating this network link is a little tricky, so follow these instructions:
- Download the Global Fire network link
- Turn on “Global Fire Maps” in the “Temporary Places” folder. This will load the first “level” of folders
- Look for a folder labeled “600*300” (which is the resolution of the data I believe) – open the folder by clicking on the little triangle -> DO NOT turn on the folder though as you will load all the data at once
- You will see folders for each year since 2000. Click on a year to load it, then open the folder (again, DO NOT turn it on)
- You should see a reverse chronological list of images for ten day periods of the format ‘year”daynumber’. So, for example 2005001-2005010 is the first ten days of the year. You can turn and off these different images to see the fire data.
By the way, this is another case where a time-lapse animation of placemarks would be VERY valuable in Google Earth if it were available. But, you could make a movie of the various files, which is what Valery35 has done. He published a Global Fire Movie you can watch in Windows Media Player which shows the fires over time in Google Earth. Very cool!
The fire maps were created by…
The fire maps were created by Jacques Descloitres, MODIS Rapid Response System at NASA/GSFC and collected by the Geography Department of University of Maryland. Other credits can be found in the original post.
Valery 35 is with the GIS department at the Russian Academy of Sciences in Perm, Russia. I’ve previously written about Google Earth network links he’s done tracking birds, World Designer, KMLer, and his very useful Tranportation network link. Yet another great one Valery35! You can see their Google Earth site with lots of interesting applications.
About Frank Taylor
Frank Taylor started the Google Earth Blog in July, 2005 shortly after Google Earth was first released. He has worked with 3D computer graphics and VR for many years and was very impressed with this exciting product. Frank completed a 5.5 year circumnavigation of the earth by sailboat in June 2015 which you can read about at Tahina Expedition, and is a licensed pilot, backpacker, diver, and photographer.
Global wild fires?
I see that Thailand is covered in red. But I’ve never seen a wild fire here. What I do see is the controlled burning of stubble in the rice paddies.
This should be noted, otherwise the info might be seen as more alarming than it should be.
The data does not represent wild fires only. It just detects fires from space.
Frank is correct of course. MODIS detects any sort of fire, the data is used for both firefighting in the case of wildifres and carbon monitoring and assessment for agricultural fires. I know and feel compelled to write as I’ve spent far too much time kanoodling this sort of data. If you want more details http://modis-fire.umd.edu/index.asp…
this is really cool. In Al Gore’s new movie, the ” truth he showed a picture like this.