The VIIRS/NPP Thermal Anomalies/Fire 6-Min L2 Swath 750m NRT product, short-name VNP14_NRT is based on the MODIS Fire algorithm. The input to the Active Fires production are Level-1B moderate-resolution reflective band M7, and emissive bands M13 and M15. The fire algorithm first calculates bands M13, M15 brightness temperature (BT) statistics for a group of background pixels adjacent to each potential fire pixel. These statistics are used to set thresholds for several contextual fire detection tests. There is also an absolute fire detection test based on a pre-set M13 BT threshold. If the results of the absolute and relative fire detection tests meet certain criteria, the pixel is labeled as fire. The designation of a pixel as fire from the results of the BT threshold tests may be overridden under sun glint conditions or if too few pixels were used to calculate the background statistics.

The VNP14_NRT product contains several pieces of information for each fire pixel: pixel coordinates, latitude and longitude, pixel M7 reflectance, background M7 reflectance, pixel M13 and M15 BT, background M13 and M15 BT, mean background BT difference, background M13, M15, and BT difference mean absolute deviation, fire radiative power, number of adjacent cloud pixels, number of adjacent water pixels, background window size, number of valid background pixels, detection confidence, land pixel flag, background M7 reflectance, and reflectance mean absolute deviation.

The product provides day and nighttime active fire detection over land and water (from gas flares). The VNP14 product provides fire data continuity with NASA's EOS MODIS 1 km fire product.

For more information visit University of Maryland VIIRS Active Fire Web page at http://viirsfire.geog.umd.edu/