Skip to main content

Official websites use .gov

A **.gov** website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.

Secure .gov websites use HTTPS

A **lock** () or **https://** means you've safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.

Visit the U.S. Fire Administration homepage

HotelsLibraryPublicationsBlogImage GalleryPodcastsAboutContact

            - Fire Academy - Courses
- Programs
- Admissions
- On-Campus Students
- About
- 
- Fire Academy Home

            - NFIRS - eNFIRS Applications
- Documentation
- Training
- Coding Help
- Reporting Guidelines
- Vendor Information
- Data Quality
- Access Data
- About NFIRS
- NERIS
- 
- NFIRS Home

            - Prevention - Home Fires
- Arson & Youth Firesetting
- Hotels & Vacation Rentals
- Outdoor Fires/Wildfires
- Vehicle Fires
- Workplace Fires
- Life Safety Hazards
- Fire Is Everyone’s Fight®
- Fire Prevention Officials
- 
- Fire Prevention Home

            - Statistics - Reports
- Death & Injury Risk
- Residential Fires
- Nonresidential Fires
- Outside & Vehicle Fires
- Firefighter Fatalities
- Fire Department Registry
- State Statistics
- Data Sets
- 
- Statistics Home

            - EMS
            - Wildfire - Training
- Cohesive Strategy
- Fire-Adapted Communities
- Outreach Materials
- Healthy Landscapes
- Data
- Research & Technology
- Wildfire & WUI Blog
- 
- Wildfire Home

            - A-Z Index
            - 

- Fire Academy... - Overview
- Courses
- Programs
- Admissions
- Campus Life
- About

- NFIRS... - Overview
- eNFIRS Applications
- Documentation
- Training
- Coding Help
- Reporting Guidelines
- Vendor Information
- Data Quality
- Access Data
- About NFIRS
- NERIS

- Fire Prevention... - Overview
- Home Fires
- Arson & Youth Firesetting
- Hotels & Vacation Rentals
- Outdoor Fires/Wildfires
- Vehicle Fires
- Workplace Fires
- Life Safety Hazards
- Fire Is Everyone’s Fight®
- Fire Prevention Officials

- Statistics... - Overview
- Reports
- Death & Injury Risk
- Residential Fires
- Nonresidential Fires
- Outside & Vehicle Fires
- Firefighter Fatalities
- Fire Department List
- State Statistics
- Data Sets

- EMS
- Wildfire... - Overview
- Training
- Cohesive Strategy
- Fire-Adapted Communities
- Outreach Materials
- Data
- Research & Technology
- Wildfire & WUI Blog

- A-Z Index

            - Hotels
            - Library
            - Publications
            - Blog
            - Image Gallery
            - Podcasts
            - About
            - Contact

- Home
- WUI
- Data, Research & Technology
- Wildfire Report Series
- Modis-Detected Fires
- Butry-Thomas Summary

MODIS-Detected Fires in NFIRS

# The Butry-Thomas Analysis

### Matching Selected NFIRS Fires to MODIS Observations by County and Date in California

    - Share on:
    - 
    - 
    - 

 Investigation of MODIS-Detected Fires in NFIRSFebruary 2021, 12 pages

##### In this section

                - Training
                - Cohesive Strategy
                - Fire-Adapted Communities
                - Outreach Materials
                - Healthy Landscapes
                - Data                   - NFIRS
                  - Wildfire Report Series
                - Research & Technology
                - Wildfire & WUI Blog

          - Report /
          - 
          - 
          - 
          - 
          - 
          - 
          - 
          - 
          - 
          - 

## Summary of approach and findings

Butry and Thomas examined MODIS-detected fires within areas of local jurisdiction in California from 2003 to 2014 and found that only 32% of them were present in NFIRS.

However, their analysis did not use geocoded NFIRS data, and they were only able to attempt to match NFIRS fires with MODIS-detected fires by county and date. In addition, the criteria they used to select NFIRS incidents may have omitted some fires that may have been detected by MODIS.

It should be noted that NFIRS is not a census of all fire department-responded incidents, and it is not based on a statistically derived sample. Among other issues that prevent the NFIRS from being a complete source for fire department incident data are reporting deadlines, data access and budgetary considerations. For fire incidents, as with other NFIRS fire department-responded incidents, the NFIRS raw totals do not reflect the whole of the U.S. fire problem; NFIRS contains incident data derived from voluntary reporting of fire incidents in the U.S.

The state of California is divided into distinct areas where either the local fire department, CAL FIRE or the agencies of the federal government have primary responsibility for wildfire incident management. The authors first identified MODIS-detected fires that occurred within local direct protection areas. They then retrieved a subset of California NFIRS incidents by selecting incidents where any of the following criteria was present:

### Incident Type = 141: Forest, woods or wildland fire

### Incident Type in 100 series (Fire) or 561 (Unauthorized burning), 631 (Authorized controlled burning), or 632 (Prescribed fire), and

          - Actions Taken includes 13: Establish fire lines (wildfire), or
          - Actions Taken includes 14: Contain fire (wildland), or
          - Actions Taken includes 15: Confine fire (wildland), or
          - Actions Taken includes 16: Control fire (wildland).

### Incident Type in 100 series (Fire), and

          - Area of Fire Origin = 95: Wildland, woods, or
          - Suppression Factor includes 775: Urban-wildland Interface Area.

### Wildland Fire Module: Was used for incidents where Incident Type was not 632 (Prescribed fire)

Finally, they found those NFIRS fires that occurred in the same county (using the county of the reporting fire department) and on the same day as any MODIS-detected fire in local direct protection areas (Figure 1).

Butry and Thomas found that 32% of the MODIS-detected fires in areas of local responsibility occurred in the same county and on the same day as an NFIRS-reported fire that met the criteria defined in the study to describe wildfires.

Back to top

-  MODIS
- Butry-Thomas Analysis (Summary) (current page)
- Butry-Thomas Analysis (Discussion) 

Page last reviewed: March 9, 2021

Be prepared.Be informed.Be safe.

            - 
            - 
            - 
            - 
            - 

Contact USFA

Information for
                - College/university educators
                - On-campus students
                - Off-campus students
                - Online students
                - NFA instructors
                - Public information officers

                - Public fire educators
                - Researchers
                - State training officials
                - Volunteer fire service
                - Wildland firefighters

About USFA
            - Leadership
            - Events
            - Position statements
            - Strategic plan
            - Job announcements
            - Send us your photos
            - Doing business with us
            - Subscribe to email lists

----

16825 S. Seton Ave.Emmitsburg, MD21727USA

800-238-3358

 Fire Is Everyone’s Fight®

USFA.FEMA.govAn official website of the Federal Emergency Management Agency

          - Accessibility
          - Accountability
          - Careers
          - Civil Rights
          - Contact FEMA

          - FOIA
          - Glossary
          - No FEAR Act
          - Plug-Ins
          - Privacy

          - Report Disaster Fraud
          - Website Information
          - DHS.gov
          - USA.gov
          - Inspector General

Current Advisories