NASA FIRMS (Fire Information for Resource Management System) wildfire data for New Zealand
| Data Provider | API Endpoint | Content |
|---|---|---|
| NASA FIRMS | https://firms.modaps.eosdis.nasa.gov/api/kml_fire_footprints/ | Active fire detections from multiple satellites (KMZ) |
| Source | Satellite | Description |
|---|---|---|
| MODIS_C6.1 | Terra/Aqua | MODIS fire detections (1km resolution) |
| VIIRS_SNPP | Suomi-NPP | VIIRS fire detections (375m resolution) |
| VIIRS_NOAA20 | NOAA-20 | VIIRS fire detections (375m resolution) |
| VIIRS_NOAA21 | NOAA-21 | VIIRS fire detections (375m resolution) |
Data is fetched from the public Australia/New Zealand KMZ fire footprint files (no API key required).
When land cover masking and/or fire season awareness are enabled, the ETL queries additional NZ data sources:
| Data Provider | API | Content | Auth |
|---|---|---|---|
| Manaaki Whenua / Landcare Research | LRIS WFS | LCDB v6.0 land cover classification | API key (free) |
| Fire and Emergency NZ (FENZ) | ArcGIS REST | Fire season status, DoC land, Section 52 prohibitions | None |
- Fetches fire detections from NASA FIRMS (CSV + KML sources) across 4 satellites
- Deduplicates detections across sources, keeping highest confidence
- Filters by minimum confidence and fire radiative power (FRP)
- Optional fire pixel footprint polygons (375m VIIRS, 1km MODIS)
Classifies each detection by NZ land cover type using LCDB v6.0, enabling intelligent filtering:
| Risk Level | Land Cover | Behaviour |
|---|---|---|
| Critical | Indigenous Forest | Always alert — bypasses all FRP filters |
| High | Exotic Forest, Broadleaved Indigenous Hardwoods, Deciduous Hardwoods | Alert if FRP exceeds threshold |
| Medium | Manuka/Kanuka, Matagouri, Sub Alpine Shrubland, Fernland, Flaxland | Alert if FRP exceeds threshold, or at night, or corroborated |
| Low | Grassland, Cropland, Orchards, Gorse/Broom | Likely farm/scrub burn — filtered unless FRP is high, at night, or corroborated |
| Ignore | Built-up Area, Transport Infrastructure, Surface Mine | Filtered when urban heat filter is enabled |
Scans the detection batch for nearby fires (within 500m / 2 hours). Corroborated detections — where multiple pixels or satellite passes confirm the same fire — bypass FRP thresholds for Medium risk land cover, and apply a reduced FRP floor (FRP_CORROBORATED_LOW) for Low-Grass/Low-Scrub rather than bypassing the threshold entirely. This prevents clusters of adjacent farm burns from being mistaken for a wildfire.
Queries FENZ fire season status for each detection location:
- Open season: raises FRP thresholds by 1.5× for low-risk land (farmers are legally burning)
- Restricted/Prohibited season: bypasses FRP thresholds for low-risk land (any fire is suspicious)
- Includes DoC conservation land upgrade (Open → Restricted) and Section 52 activity-specific prohibitions
Detections between 9 PM – 6 AM NZST/NZDT on Medium/Low risk land bypass FRP thresholds. Farmers don't burn at night.
Assessments (land cover, fire season, clustering) are cached across Lambda invocations. Since FIRMS reports the same detection for up to 24 hours, this avoids redundant API calls on subsequent polling cycles.
Deployment into the CloudTAK environment for ETL tasks is done via automatic releases to the TAK.NZ AWS environment.
Github actions will build and push docker releases on every version tag which can then be automatically configured via the CloudTAK API.
The workflow uses GitHub variables and secrets to make it reusable across different ETL repositories.
DEMO_STACK_NAME: Name of the demo stack (default: "Demo")PROD_STACK_NAME: Name of the production stack (default: "Prod")
DEMO_AWS_ACCOUNT_ID: AWS account ID for demo environmentDEMO_AWS_REGION: AWS region for demo environmentDEMO_AWS_ROLE_ARN: IAM role ARN for demo environmentPROD_AWS_ACCOUNT_ID: AWS account ID for production environmentPROD_AWS_REGION: AWS region for production environmentPROD_AWS_ROLE_ARN: IAM role ARN for production environment
ETL_NAME: Name of the ETL (default: repository name)
AWS_ACCOUNT_ID: AWS account ID for the environmentAWS_REGION: AWS region for the environmentAWS_ROLE_ARN: IAM role ARN for the environment
These variables and secrets can be set in the GitHub organization or repository settings under Settings > Secrets and variables.
For manual deployment you can use the scripts/etl/deploy-etl.sh script from the CloudTAK repo.
As an example:
../CloudTAK/scripts/etl/deploy-etl.sh Demo v1.0.0 --profile tak-nz-demo
When registering this ETL as a task in CloudTAK:
- Use the
<repo-name>.pngfile in the main folder of this repository as the Task Logo - Use the raw GitHub URL of this README.md file as the Task Markdown Readme URL
This will ensure proper visual identification and documentation for the task in the CloudTAK interface.
TAK.NZ provided Lambda ETLs are currently all written in NodeJS through the use of a AWS Lambda optimized Docker container. Documentation for the Dockerfile can be found in the AWS Help Center
npm installSet the necessary environment variables to communicate with a local ETL server.
When the ETL is deployed the ETL_API and ETL_LAYER variables will be provided by the Lambda Environment
export ETL_API="http://localhost:5001"
export ETL_LAYER="19"
export MAP_KEY="your-nasa-firms-map-key" # optional, no longer used
export BBOX="-47.3,166.3,-34.4,178.6"
export MIN_CONFIDENCE="40"
export MIN_FRP="10"
export SHOW_FOOTPRINT="false"
export LAND_COVER_MASKING="true"
export LRIS_API_KEY="your-lris-api-key"
export FIRE_SEASON_AWARE="true"
export FILTER_URBAN_HEAT="true"Get your NASA FIRMS Map Key from: https://firms.modaps.eosdis.nasa.gov/api/
Get your LRIS API Key (free) from: https://lris.scinfo.org.nz/ (requires access to layer-123148, LCDB v6.0)
| Setting | Default | Recommended | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
MAP_KEY |
— | — | No longer used (CSV sources removed). Kept for backward compatibility. |
BBOX |
-47.3,166.3,-34.4,178.6 |
(default) | Bounding box: minLat,minLon,maxLat,maxLon |
MIN_CONFIDENCE |
50 |
40 |
Minimum confidence %. Lower to include borderline detections that clustering can validate. |
MIN_FRP |
20 |
10 |
Minimum FRP (MW). Set low and let land cover thresholds handle filtering per risk level. At 5 MW too many post-harvest forestry burns pass through. |
SHOW_FOOTPRINT |
false |
false |
Show fire pixel footprint polygon on map |
LAND_COVER_MASKING |
false |
true |
Enable LCDB v6.0 land cover classification. Requires LRIS_API_KEY. |
LRIS_API_KEY |
— | — | LRIS API key for land cover lookups. Free at https://lris.scinfo.org.nz/ |
FRP_THRESHOLD_HIGH |
10 |
10 |
Min FRP (MW) for High risk classes (Broadleaved Hardwoods) |
FRP_THRESHOLD_MEDIUM |
25 |
20 |
Min FRP (MW) for Medium risk classes (Manuka/Kanuka, Scrub) |
FRP_THRESHOLD_LOW_SCRUB |
30 |
30 |
Min FRP (MW) for Gorse/Broom |
FRP_THRESHOLD_LOW_GRASS |
40 |
35 |
Min FRP (MW) for Grassland/Cropland |
FRP_CORROBORATED_LOW |
20 |
20 |
Min FRP (MW) for corroborated Low-Grass/Low-Scrub detections. Replaces the full threshold when a detection is confirmed by nearby pixels or a second satellite pass. Set to 0 to allow any corroborated Low detection through. |
FILTER_URBAN_HEAT |
false |
true |
Filter out detections on urban land cover |
FIRE_SEASON_AWARE |
false |
true |
Enable FENZ fire season lookups (no key required) |
To run the task, ensure the local CloudTAK server is running and then run with typescript runtime or build to JS and run natively with node
ts-node task.ts
npm run build
node dist/task.js
TAK.NZ is distributed under AGPL-3.0-only
Copyright (C) 2025 - Christian Elsen, Team Awareness Kit New Zealand (TAK.NZ)