11 August 2010: The Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN (FAO) has launched an online portal, the Global Fire Information Management System (GFIRMS), that provides daily updates on fires through satellites operated by the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). The system has numerous applications for scientists and natural resource managers. The GFIRMS portal allows users to track fires while they are still burning and will give scientists the opportunity to analyze spatial and temporal fire trends. Users can define specific areas of interest and receive daily email updates on the location of fires. At the launch, FAO underscored the importance of controlling forest fires, not only because of the increasing number of casualties and the amounts of area burned, but also because of the relations with issues of global interest, such as climate change.

The system is free of charge and currently available in English, French and Spanish. GFIRMS was developed in collaboration with the University of Maryland and NASA. [FAO Press Release][GFIRMS]