Wildfire Watch

Sources

Every figure on this platform traces back to a named source with its own licence, cadence and reliability. This page shows the live health of each one, and how each is attributed.

Risk model configuration: config/risk-model.json, version 2026.08.4. See the methodology page for what every weight in it means.

Source health

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Update cadence

How often each source is refreshed in normal operation. A satellite detection can still be hours old when it arrives: polar-orbiting satellites pass a given point a handful of times a day, so "last fetched" and "last observed" are different things and both are shown above.

NASA FIRMS
Fetched every 20 minutes; new observations arrive with each satellite overpass (several per day), and NASA's near real time products themselves lag by around 3 hours.
Open-Meteo weather
Every 90 minutes across the UK grid and the most significant fire clusters.
MET Norway weather
Every 90 minutes at incident clusters outside the UK, giving wind direction and downwind sectors worldwide.
EFFIS burned area
Every 6 hours; the underlying Copernicus product itself updates roughly daily.
EFFIS/GWIS fire danger
Rendered directly from the EU map service on the live map; new forecast runs appear daily.
Rain radar
RainViewer composite, new frames roughly every 10 minutes.
Context data
Settlements, facilities and boundaries refresh daily; historical series are updated when their official sources publish.

Developers: every dataset on this site is available as JSON. See the API documentation.

Attribution and licensing

Every data source behind this platform keeps its own licence and attribution requirement. Live status for each is in the table above; the wording below follows each source's own attribution guidance.

NASA FIRMSUS Government work, public domain
We acknowledge the use of data and imagery from NASA's Fire Information for Resource Management System (FIRMS) (https://firms.modaps.eosdis.nasa.gov/), part of NASA's Earth Observing System Data and Information System (EOSDIS), operated by the LANCE and ESDIS teams.
Open-MeteoCC BY 4.0
Weather forecast and observation data by Open-Meteo.com, licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International.
Copernicus EFFISEuropean Union
Contains modified Copernicus data, European Forest Fire Information System (EFFIS), (c) European Union.
EUMETSATCC BY 4.0
Live fire radiative power imagery from the Meteosat Third Generation EUMETView WMS service, copyright 2026 EUMETSAT, licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International.
OpenStreetMap contributorsODbL
Building and facility context via the Overpass API. (c) OpenStreetMap contributors, available under the Open Database Licence.
ONS and Ordnance Survey boundariesOpen Government Licence v3
Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0, including Office for National Statistics and Ordnance Survey boundary data.
postcodes.ioMIT, ONS and OS data
Postcode lookup via the free postcodes.io API, itself built on ONS and Ordnance Survey open data.
OpenFreeMap and CARTO basemapsODbL basemap data
Map tiles from OpenFreeMap and CARTO basemap styles, built on OpenStreetMap data under the Open Database Licence.
MHCLG fire statisticsOpen Government Licence v3
Fire and rescue workforce statistics (FIRE1101) from the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.

Wildfire Watch is a decision-support and public-information tool. It is not an official warning service.

Local fire and rescue services remain authoritative: in an emergency call 999. The government publishes official guidance on what to do about wildfires.

Data is drawn from NASA FIRMS, Open-Meteo, Copernicus EFFIS, OpenStreetMap contributors, ONS and OS boundaries, MHCLG fire statistics and other named sources, each shown with its own licence and attribution.

Wildfire Watch is provided by WhatLabs. Contact: hello@whatlabs.org