NASA FIRMS

NASA Fire Information for Resource Management System (FIRMS) REST API providing near-real-time satellite fire detections globally from MODIS (Terra/Aqua), VIIRS (S-NPP, NOAA-20, NOAA-21), and LANDSAT instruments. Data is available within 3 hours of satellite observation worldwide, with Ultra Real-Time detections available within 60 seconds for the US and Canada. Supports area-based bounding box queries, KML fire footprints by region, data availability checks, and missing data identification. Free MAP_KEY registration required.

NASA FIRMS publishes 4 APIs on the APIs.io network, including Area Fire Detections API, Data Availability API, KML Fire Footprints API, and 1 more. Tagged areas include NASA, Fire Detection, Satellite, MODIS, and VIIRS.

The NASA FIRMS catalog on APIs.io includes 1 JSON-LD context and 1 Spectral governance ruleset.

NASA FIRMS’s developer surface includes documentation, getting-started guide, authentication, pricing, engineering blog, and 11 more developer resources.

🌐 Visit website 📡 Source on GitHub

49.7/100 developing ▬ flat Agent 42/100 agent ready Full breakdown ↓
scored 2026-08-21 · rubric v0.12.0

AccessFree

4 APIs

NASAFire DetectionSatelliteMODISVIIRSRemote Sensing Open Data Environmental Geospatial Science

Kin Score

Kin Score How this is scored →
scored 2026-08-21 · rubric v0.12.0

Composite quality — 49.7/100 · developing

Contract Quality 13.7 / 21

Developer Ergonomics 6.1 / 17

Access Clarity 8.5 / 17

Operational Transparency 2.9 / 11

Contract Governance 2.6 / 10

Discoverability 6.3 / 9

Regulatory Posture 5.8 / 15

Agent readiness — 42/100 · agent ready

Machine-Readable Contract 18 / 18

Agentic Access Contract 10 / 10

Documented Reversibility 6 / 6

MCP Server 0 / 12

Machine-Readable Auth 10 / 10

Idempotency 9 / 9

Stable Error Semantics 0 / 8

Request/Response Examples 7 / 7

Rate-Limit Signaling 7 / 7

Typed Event Surface 0 / 6

Agent Skills 0 / 5

Well-Known Catalog 0 / 4

Consent & Bot Identity 0 / 3

A2A Agent Card 0 / 8

Dry-Run / Simulate Mode 4 / 4

Regulatory Posture applies to this provider. Its tags matched the Government & Public Sector regime, so Regulatory Posture carries 15 points of the composite. If this regime is wrong for your business, say so on your provider repo — the applicability map is public and we will correct it.

The six quality facets above are damped to 85 points between them, because the conditional facet above carries the other 15. That is why each facet's contribution is shown against a damped maximum: raising a quality facet moves the composite by 85% of its nominal weight, not 100%. The full arithmetic is at apis.io/rating/.

Improve this rating by publishing the missing artifacts — every area above can be raised, and the full rubric is at apis.io/rating/. This rating is computed from github.com/api-evangelist/nasa-firms: open an issue to ask a question, or submit a pull request to add artifacts. Want it done for you? Prioritized profiling — $2,500 →

APIs 4

Individual APIs this provider publishes, each with its own machine-readable definition.

Rate Limits 1

Documented rate limits and quota policies.

Nasa Firms Rate Limits

1 limits

RATE LIMITS

FinOps 1

Cost, billing, and metering signals for API financial operations.

JSON Schema 2

Standalone JSON Schema definitions for this provider's data models.

Data Availability Record

4 properties

JSON SCHEMA

Fire Detection Record

13 properties

JSON SCHEMA

Examples 3

Example request and response payloads for these APIs.

AGENTIC

Resources

Get Started 1

Portal, sign-up, and the first successful call

GettingStarted

GettingStarted

Documentation 1

Reference material describing how the API behaves

Documentation

Documentation

Agent Surfaces 1

MCP servers, agent skills, and machine-readable catalogs

AgenticAccess

AgenticAccess

Design & Contract 2

Pagination, idempotency, versioning, errors, and events

Vocabulary

Vocabulary

JSONLDContext

JSONLDContext

Build 1

SDKs, sample code, and the tooling you integrate with

GitHubOrg

GitHubOrg

Access & Security 2

Authentication, authorization, and security posture

DomainSecurity

DomainSecurity

Authentication

Authentication

Operate 2

Status, limits, changes, and where to get help

Contact

Contact

RateLimits

RateLimits

Commercial 4

Pricing, plans, and the legal terms of use

TermsOfService

Pricing

Plans

FinOps

Company 2

The organization behind the API

Website

Website

Blog

Blog

Source (apis.yml)

aid: nasa-firms
name: NASA FIRMS
description: 'NASA Fire Information for Resource Management System (FIRMS) REST API providing near-real-time satellite fire
  detections globally from MODIS (Terra/Aqua), VIIRS (S-NPP, NOAA-20, NOAA-21), and LANDSAT instruments. Data is available
  within 3 hours of satellite observation worldwide, with Ultra Real-Time detections available within 60 seconds for the US
  and Canada. Supports area-based bounding box queries, KML fire footprints by region, data availability checks, and missing
  data identification. Free MAP_KEY registration required.

  '
accessModel:
  pricing: free
  onboarding: unknown
  trial: false
  try_now: false
  public: false
  label: Free
  confidence: medium
  source:
  - plans
  generated: '2026-07-22'
  method: derived
image: https://kinlane-images.s3.amazonaws.com/shared/apis-json/icons/nasa-firms.png
url: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/api-evangelist/nasa-firms/refs/heads/main/apis.yml
created: '2026-06-13'
modified: '2026-06-13'
specificationVersion: '0.23'
type: Index
tags:
- NASA
- Fire Detection
- Satellite
- MODIS
- VIIRS
- Remote Sensing
- Open Data
- Environmental
- Geospatial
- Science
apis:
- aid: nasa-firms:nasa-firms-area-fire-detections-api
  name: NASA FIRMS Area Fire Detections API
  description: Active fire hotspot detections within a bounding box area
  humanURL: https://firms.modaps.eosdis.nasa.gov/api/area/
  baseURL: https://firms.modaps.eosdis.nasa.gov
  tags:
  - Area Fire Detections
  properties:
  - type: OpenAPI
    url: openapi/nasa-firms-area-fire-detections-api-openapi.yml
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://firms.modaps.eosdis.nasa.gov/api/area/
  - type: JSONSchema
    url: json-schema/fire-detection.json
  - type: Examples
    url: examples/area-fire-detections-request.json
  - type: Examples
    url: examples/area-fire-detections-response.csv
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://firms.modaps.eosdis.nasa.gov/api/kml_fire_footprints/
  - type: Examples
    url: examples/kml-fire-footprints-request.json
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://firms.modaps.eosdis.nasa.gov/api/data_availability/
  - type: JSONSchema
    url: json-schema/data-availability.json
  - type: Examples
    url: examples/data-availability-request.json
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://firms.modaps.eosdis.nasa.gov/api/missing_data/
- aid: nasa-firms:nasa-firms-data-availability-api
  name: NASA FIRMS Data Availability API
  description: Check which dates have Standard Processing or Near Real-Time data
  humanURL: https://firms.modaps.eosdis.nasa.gov/api/area/
  baseURL: https://firms.modaps.eosdis.nasa.gov
  tags:
  - Data Availability
  properties:
  - type: OpenAPI
    url: openapi/nasa-firms-data-availability-api-openapi.yml
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://firms.modaps.eosdis.nasa.gov/api/area/
  - type: JSONSchema
    url: json-schema/fire-detection.json
  - type: Examples
    url: examples/area-fire-detections-request.json
  - type: Examples
    url: examples/area-fire-detections-response.csv
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://firms.modaps.eosdis.nasa.gov/api/kml_fire_footprints/
  - type: Examples
    url: examples/kml-fire-footprints-request.json
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://firms.modaps.eosdis.nasa.gov/api/data_availability/
  - type: JSONSchema
    url: json-schema/data-availability.json
  - type: Examples
    url: examples/data-availability-request.json
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://firms.modaps.eosdis.nasa.gov/api/missing_data/
- aid: nasa-firms:nasa-firms-kml-fire-footprints-api
  name: NASA FIRMS KML Fire Footprints API
  description: KMZ files containing color-coded fire footprint polygons by region
  humanURL: https://firms.modaps.eosdis.nasa.gov/api/area/
  baseURL: https://firms.modaps.eosdis.nasa.gov
  tags:
  - KML Fire Footprints
  properties:
  - type: OpenAPI
    url: openapi/nasa-firms-kml-fire-footprints-api-openapi.yml
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://firms.modaps.eosdis.nasa.gov/api/area/
  - type: JSONSchema
    url: json-schema/fire-detection.json
  - type: Examples
    url: examples/area-fire-detections-request.json
  - type: Examples
    url: examples/area-fire-detections-response.csv
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://firms.modaps.eosdis.nasa.gov/api/kml_fire_footprints/
  - type: Examples
    url: examples/kml-fire-footprints-request.json
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://firms.modaps.eosdis.nasa.gov/api/data_availability/
  - type: JSONSchema
    url: json-schema/data-availability.json
  - type: Examples
    url: examples/data-availability-request.json
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://firms.modaps.eosdis.nasa.gov/api/missing_data/
- aid: nasa-firms:nasa-firms-missing-data-api
  name: NASA FIRMS Missing Data API
  description: Identify dates with absent satellite fire detection data
  humanURL: https://firms.modaps.eosdis.nasa.gov/api/area/
  baseURL: https://firms.modaps.eosdis.nasa.gov
  tags:
  - Missing Data
  properties:
  - type: OpenAPI
    url: openapi/nasa-firms-missing-data-api-openapi.yml
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://firms.modaps.eosdis.nasa.gov/api/area/
  - type: JSONSchema
    url: json-schema/fire-detection.json
  - type: Examples
    url: examples/area-fire-detections-request.json
  - type: Examples
    url: examples/area-fire-detections-response.csv
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://firms.modaps.eosdis.nasa.gov/api/kml_fire_footprints/
  - type: Examples
    url: examples/kml-fire-footprints-request.json
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://firms.modaps.eosdis.nasa.gov/api/data_availability/
  - type: JSONSchema
    url: json-schema/data-availability.json
  - type: Examples
    url: examples/data-availability-request.json
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://firms.modaps.eosdis.nasa.gov/api/missing_data/
common:
- type: AgenticAccess
  url: agentic-access/nasa-firms-agentic-access.yml
- type: DomainSecurity
  url: security/nasa-firms-domain-security.yml
- type: Website
  url: https://firms.modaps.eosdis.nasa.gov/
- type: Documentation
  url: https://firms.modaps.eosdis.nasa.gov/api/
- type: GettingStarted
  url: https://firms.modaps.eosdis.nasa.gov/api/area/
- type: Authentication
  url: https://firms.modaps.eosdis.nasa.gov/api/
- type: GitHubOrg
  url: https://github.com/nasa
- type: TermsOfService
  url: https://www.earthdata.nasa.gov/engage/open-data-services-and-software/data-and-information-policy
- type: Pricing
  url: https://firms.modaps.eosdis.nasa.gov/api/
- type: Blog
  url: https://earthdata.nasa.gov/
- type: Contact
  url: https://firms.modaps.eosdis.nasa.gov/contact/
- type: Plans
  url: plans/nasa-firms-plans-pricing.yml
- type: RateLimits
  url: rate-limits/nasa-firms-rate-limits.yml
- type: FinOps
  url: finops/nasa-firms-finops.yml
- type: Vocabulary
  url: vocabulary/nasa-firms-vocabulary.yml
- type: JSONLDContext
  url: json-ld/nasa-firms-context.jsonld
maintainers:
- FN: Kin Lane
  email: kin@apievangelist.com

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