Methodology
How Europe Fire Map turns public fire, weather and travel sources into daily traveller pages, and where its limits are.
The short version
This site is an information and travel-planning aid. It is not an emergency service, not an official incident feed and not a substitute for local instructions. If this site and an authority disagree, the authority is right. In danger anywhere in the EU, call 112.
Data sources
Satellite fire detections
NASA FIRMS VIIRS and MODIS feeds provide recent heat detections. A detection is a satellite-observed heat signature, not always a confirmed wildfire perimeter.
Official alerts
MeteoAlarm and national services provide official weather alert levels used for country alert counts and warning context.
Forecasts
Open-Meteo forecast data supports temperature and short-range outlook displays where the site shows forecast values.
Editorial sources
National civil-protection pages, prefectures, road authorities, airport/operator pages, JRC/EFFIS and FCDO advice are used for the travel context, and every claim drawn from them is checked back against them before publication.
Refresh cadence
- Map data, satellite detections, alert counts and forecast-derived displays are regenerated by the data pipeline.
- Every public page carries a data-refresh date from the build and a date for when the fire and disruption reporting was last verified against official sources.
- Those two stamps are deliberately separate: a fresh data build does not imply that every editorial sentence was rewritten that day.
Static pages vs live situation pages
Some pages are evergreen decision support: route planning, insurance questions, emergency kit, methodology and destination triage. These pages explain what to check and how to think, but they should not be read as live incident status.
Live or fast-moving facts belong on generated map pages, event pages, warning banners and official sources. For current evacuation orders, road closures, smoke advice or forest-access rules, use the linked national and local authorities.
How satellite fire counts are treated
- Satellite detections are useful early-warning signals, but they can include repeat passes, industrial heat, agricultural burning or heat near an existing fire.
- The public count preset is fixed: merge the four NASA FIRMS Europe 24-hour feeds, remove low-confidence rows, snap detections to 0.01 degree cells and keep the strongest row per cell.
- Country and map counts are deduped satellite heat-location planning indicators. They do not equal the number of confirmed wildfires.
- Map dots may be clustered for readability after counting. Display clusters are not the count algorithm.
What to verify before acting
- Official civil-protection or emergency service instructions for the exact area.
- Road authority closures and local access restrictions.
- Accommodation, campsite, airport, ferry, rail or tour operator updates.
- Travel insurance wording and provider instructions if disruption affects a booking.