Transatlantic Fire Resource Guide
Forecast Information
Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre (CIFFC)
Operator: CIFFC (federally incorporated not-for-profit), owned and operated by federal, provincial, and territorial wildland fire management agencies of Canada
Geographic Focus: Canada (national); international coordination with U.S., Australia, New Zealand, Mexico, South Africa
Tags: Resource coordination, mutual aid, MARS, CANUS, preparedness level, situation report, Canada, interagency
Access: Free, public (situational products); operational access for member agencies
URL: https://ciffc.net/
CIFFC coordinates the sharing of firefighting resources — personnel, equipment, and aircraft — between Canadian federal, provincial, and territorial wildland fire agencies and international partners under the Canadian Interagency Mutual Aid Resources Sharing (MARS) Agreement, and publishes a daily situation report during fire season providing national-level intelligence on fire activity, resource availability, and preparedness levels across all member agencies. The Centre is the Canadian analog to the U.S. NIFC/NICC, operating seven days a week during fire season and maintaining direct contact with NICC in Boise to facilitate cross-border resource sharing under the Canada-U.S. Reciprocal Forest Fire Fighting Arrangement (CANUS). For Canadian fire managers, provincial coordination centers, and international partners, ciffc.net is the authoritative source for national preparedness status, daily fire situation intelligence, and the operational coordination framework that governs the movement of suppression resources across jurisdictions at both domestic and international scale.
Canadian Wildland Fire Information System (CWFIS)
Operator: Natural Resources Canada (NRCan), Canadian Forest Service, Northern Forestry Centre
Geographic Focus: Canada (national)
Tags: FWI, CFFDRS, fire danger, fire behavior, FBP, hotspots, Fire M3, satellite detection, Canada, daily maps
Access: Free, public
The CWFIS has provided daily national-level wildland fire maps, reports, and data products since 1994, integrating the Canadian Forest Fire Danger Rating System (CFFDRS) — including the Fire Weather Index (FWI) System and the Fire Behavior Prediction (FBP) System — with the Fire M3 satellite monitoring system that uses low-resolution satellite imagery to detect and locate actively burning fires, estimate daily and annual area burned, and model fire behavior and biomass consumption. Updated multiple times daily using weather data from approximately 2,500 stations across Canada and the U.S., the system produces gridded national maps of fire danger, fire weather indices, forecast fire behavior, and satellite-detected hotspots, alongside a weekly National Wildland Fire Situation Report and a 30-year historical fire climatology. For Canadian fire managers, researchers, and provincial/territorial agencies, CWFIS is the authoritative national fire information system — providing the FWI and FBP products that underpin operational fire danger assessment, resource pre-positioning decisions, and long-term fire season trend analysis across the country.
European Forest Fire Information System (EFFIS)
Operator: European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), as part of the Copernicus Emergency Management Service
Geographic Focus: Europe, Middle East, North Africa (43 countries in the EFFIS network)
Tags: Fire danger forecast, active fire detection, burn severity, fire emissions, European Fire Database, seasonal forecast, Copernicus, fire damage assessment
Access: Free, public (admin area for EC Expert Group members only)
EFFIS supports national services responsible for forest fire protection across EU member states and neighboring countries by providing a comprehensive suite of operational products including fire danger forecasts (short-range, monthly, and seasonal), active fire detection, rapid and full damage assessment, fire severity mapping, fire emissions estimates, wildfire risk assessment, and the European Fire Database — with a current network of 43 countries in Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa contributing data and expertise since 1998. The system's fire danger component uses ECMWF's Global ECMWF Fire Forecasting model (GEFF) to generate multi-day and seasonal danger forecasts based on the Canadian FWI, U.S. NFDRS, and Australian McArthur rating systems, providing European fire managers with a consistent, science-based fire danger framework applicable across diverse Mediterranean, temperate, and boreal landscapes. For EU civil protection authorities, national forest fire services, researchers, and the European Parliament, EFFIS is the authoritative pan-European platform for current fire season monitoring, historical fire data analysis, and evidence-based fire risk assessment.
Fire Information for Resource Management System (FIRMS)
Operator: NASA LANCE (Land, Atmosphere Near real-time Capability for EO) / originally developed by University of Maryland
Geographic Focus: Global (with enhanced real-time products for U.S. and Canada)
Tags: MODIS, VIIRS, active fire detection, hotspots, near-real-time, satellite, fire mapping, global
Access: Free, public (data download and web services available)
FIRMS distributes near-real-time active fire and thermal anomaly detections from the MODIS instruments aboard Terra and Aqua satellites and VIIRS instruments aboard S-NPP, NOAA-20, and NOAA-21, with global data available within 3 hours of satellite observation and real-time U.S. and Canada data delivered through a dedicated partnership with the USFS —viewable via an interactive fire map and downloadable in SHP, KML, TXT, and WMS formats, with fire alert email subscriptions also available. The 375-meter VIIRS data provides the highest-resolution satellite fire detection operationally available at global scale, enabling confident detection of smaller fires and more precise hotspot locations than previous-generation products. For fire managers, smoke modelers, researchers, and emergency coordinators worldwide, FIRMS is the foundational global active fire data source — feeding directly into smoke dispersion models (including HRRR-Smoke and FireWork), driving emissions estimates, and providing the first satellite confirmation of new ignitions in remote or rapidly evolving fire situations.
Global Wildfire Information System (GWIS)
Operator: European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), under the GEO and Copernicus Work Programs; supported by NASA and partner space agencies
Geographic Focus: Global (with regional focus tools for Latin America, the Amazon, Arctic, and country-level profiles)
Tags: Fire danger forecast, active fire detection, burnt areas, fire emissions, seasonal forecast, global fuel map, country profile, GEO, Copernicus, global fire regime
Access: Free, public
GWIS is a joint GEO and Copernicus initiative that consolidates regional and national wildfire information sources into a global-scale platform, offering five core applications: a Current Situation Viewer with 10-day fire danger forecasts, 1-day lightning forecasts, and near-real-time active fire data; a Current Statistics Portal with national and regional burned area statistics; a Country Profile tool with historical fire regime data at country and sub-national level for 2002–2019; a long-term monthly and seasonal fire weather forecast; and a Data and Services portal providing WMS access to all underlying datasets. Built on the foundation of EFFIS and complementing the GOFC-GOLD Fire Implementation Team's regional networks, GWIS uses ECMWF's Global ECMWF Fire Forecasting model (GEFF) to produce globally consistent fire danger assessments based on the Canadian FWI, U.S. NFDRS, and Australian McArthur rating systems — enabling cross-regional fire danger comparisons that no national system alone can provide. For international fire managers, civil protection authorities, researchers, and policy bodies requiring a globally standardized reference for current fire conditions, seasonal outlooks, and long-term fire regime analysis, GWIS is the most comprehensive freely available global wildfire intelligence platform in existence — and the direct global counterpart to EFFIS at European scale.
Incident Information System – InciWeb
Operator: USDA Forest Service, in cooperation with all federal and state wildland fire agencies
Geographic Focus: United States (national)
Tags: Incident information, fire perimeter, evacuation, containment, public information, active fires, maps
Access: Free, public (not accessible from Germany)
InciWeb is the official U.S. interagency platform for publishing public information on active wildland fire and other all-hazard incidents, providing standardized incident pages with current fire size, percent containment, perimeter maps, evacuation orders and warnings, road closures, air quality impacts, and official news releases from each incident's Public Information Officer. Updated directly by incident management teams, InciWeb is the single authoritative source for ground-truth operational status information on individual U.S. fires — information that is routinely referenced by media, emergency managers, neighboring agencies, and the public during active events. For fire managers and coordinators, InciWeb also provides a national overview of all simultaneously active incidents, supporting situational awareness and resource allocation decisions across the full scope of the fire season.
National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC)
Operator: USDA Forest Service, USDI Bureau of Land Management, Bureau of Indian Affairs, National Park Service, Fish & Wildlife Service, National Association of State Foresters, FEMA, and NOAA
Geographic Focus: United States
Tags: Fire coordination, national preparedness, fire statistics, resource management, aerial firefighting, fire prevention, NICC
Access: Free, public
URL: https://nifc.gov/
NIFC is the nation's logistical support center for wildland fire management, providing national fire news, preparedness level information, access to the National Interagency Coordination Center (NICC), fire maps, news releases, and resources spanning fire prevention, mitigation, investigation, international and military support coordination, and public information officer tools. The site aggregates the authoritative national fire situation picture — including links to further resources. It is the primary federal reference hub for all stakeholders in U.S. wildland fire management. For fire managers, policymakers, media, and the public, NIFC serves as the definitive national entry point for understanding the current fire season status, accessing multi-agency fire management resources, and tracking the deployment of suppression assets at both regional and national scale.