Thank you to Carl Reinemann (aka usradioguy) for writing in and sharing with us how he has developed a script to layer FIRMS data (Fire Information for Resource Management System US / Canada) onto GOES satellite images (usradioguy blog post) that can be received with an RTL-SDR. We have a tutorial on GOES reception here.

The script is a Windows batch file that downloads FIRMS data from the internet every 12 hours, then converts that data into a format that can be processed by goestools. Once converted the resulting JSON file is uploaded to the Raspberry Pi running goestools. A custom goestool process is then used to layer the data onto the received images.

The result is accurate red polygons on the satellite image in areas where fires have been recorded. With this data visualized it is easy to see where smoke seen on the satellite images is coming from. For example, the image below shows the location of wildfires in the Western USA and the resulting smoke trailing across the continent.

Carl has also tested the fire data layer with GK-2A and Himawari-8 and notes that it works well with images from those satellites as well.