Data sources
WildFire-Ready is a free public utility for British Columbia and Alberta. The desktop dashboard pulls from official government sources wherever possible and clearly attributes any community-sourced or partner data layers below. Always verify with local authorities and call 911 in an emergency.
Wildfires & satellite hotspots
- BC Wildfire Service. Active wildfire locations, perimeters, status, and stage of control. Source: BC Wildfire Service / DataBC. Used under Open Government Licence — British Columbia.
- Alberta Wildfire. Active wildfire locations, perimeters, status. Source: Alberta Wildfire / Government of Alberta. Used under Open Government Licence — Alberta.
- NASA FIRMS. Near-real-time satellite hotspots from VIIRS / MODIS instruments. Source: NASA FIRMS.
Air quality, wind & weather
- Air Quality Health Index (AQHI). Source: Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC). Used under the Open Government Licence — Canada.
- Wind, temperature, humidity (per-fire). Source: real surface weather observations from Environment and Climate Change Canada SWOB-realtime stations. Each fire is matched to its nearest reporting Meteorological Service of Canada station and refreshed every 30 minutes.
- Precipitation radar (optional layer). 1km national radar mosaic, RADAR_1KM_RRAI. Source: ECCC GeoMet. Used under the Open Government Licence — Canada.
Fire weather & danger
- Canadian Wildland Fire Information System (CWFIS). Fire Weather Index, Drought Code, and per-station weather observations. Source: Canadian Forest Service. Canadian Wildland Fire Information System (CWFIS), Natural Resources Canada, Canadian Forest Service, Northern Forestry Centre, Edmonton, Alberta. cwfis.cfs.nrcan.gc.ca.
Roads & closures
- DriveBC. Highway closures, incidents, advisories. Source: DriveBC / British Columbia Ministry of Transportation.
- 511 Alberta. Highway closures, incidents, advisories. Source: 511 Alberta / Government of Alberta.
Optional layers (default off)
- Lightning (Blitzortung community network). Real-time strike points. Sampled, not exhaustive. Used with attribution: blitzortung.org. Non-commercial use only.
- Aircraft activity (OpenSky Network). Low-altitude ADS-B positions. We display unlabeled points only — we do not name, classify, or identify firefighting aircraft, and never publish callsigns or registrations. Source: OpenSky Network. Academic citation: Schäfer, M., Strohmeier, M., Lenders, V., Martinovic, I. and Wilhelm, M. (2014). Bringing Up OpenSky: A Large-scale ADS-B Sensor Network for Research. In Proceedings of the 13th IEEE/ACM International Symposium on Information Processing in Sensor Networks (IPSN), pages 83-94.
- GOES live satellite (NASA GIBS). 10-minute updates of cloud, smoke, and nighttime fire-glow imagery from GOES-East ABI GeoColor. Source: NASA EOSDIS GIBS / NOAA GOES-East. Public domain (data); imagery courtesy of NASA EOSDIS.
- GOES Fire Temperature (CIRA RAMMB SLIDER). A purpose-built thermal product that highlights active fire heat signatures. Source: CIRA RAMMB SLIDER at Colorado State University. NOAA public domain (data); CIRA attribution required for processed imagery.
- Fire Danger Rating (CWFIS). Today's national Canadian Fire Danger Rating raster. Citation: Canadian Forest Service. Canadian Wildland Fire Information System (CWFIS), Natural Resources Canada, Canadian Forest Service, Northern Forestry Centre, Edmonton, Alberta. cwfis.cfs.nrcan.gc.ca.
- Smoke / aerosol imagery (NASA GIBS). MODIS Combined Value-Added Aerosol Optical Depth (AOD) — daily mosaic showing smoke from above. Source: NASA EOSDIS GIBS.
- Global wildfires (NASA EONET). Earth Observatory Natural Event Tracker — active wildfires worldwide outside our primary BC + AB coverage. Source: NASA EONET.
- Ignition risk overlay. Composite of the last 24 h of Blitzortung lightning strikes weighted by the nearest CWFIS Fire Weather Index station. Original analysis layer; combines attributions of both upstream sources.
Map & basemap
- Basemap tiles & styles © Mapbox and © OpenStreetMap contributors.
About this dashboard
WildFire-Ready is a free, ad-free, non-profit public-interest project. The desktop dashboard is a companion to the iOS / Android apps — it shows the same data on a bigger screen, optimised for content creators and people watching multiple regions at once. There is no login, no paywall, no analytics dashboard, and no data sold or shared with third parties.
Questions, partnerships, or corrections: team@wildfire-ready.ca.