Start with the authority, not the nearest map point
Do not infer an incident name from the nearest town or assume a cluster corresponds to one wildfire. Satellite points can be displaced by the observation footprint and can represent prescribed burning, agriculture, industrial heat, volcanic activity or another anomaly.
Search for your national or regional civil-protection, emergency-management, fire-service or public-warning authority. In federated countries, operational responsibility may belong to a state, province, territory, municipality or national park rather than one national incident map.
Verify that a source is genuinely official
- Prefer a government or clearly identified public-agency domain.
- Check the agency name, jurisdiction and contact information.
- Confirm that the page publishes current warnings or incident updates, not only preparedness advice.
- Read the update timestamp and the geographic area covered by the message.
- Treat social posts and news reports as secondary unless the responsible authority identifies them as an official channel.
Know which official product you need
A fire-danger forecast estimates conditions that could support ignition or spread. A fire ban regulates activities. An incident report describes a managed event. A public warning communicates instructions, and an evacuation order has a specific legal and operational meaning. These products are not interchangeable.
ThermalGlobe’s NASA FIRMS layer is none of those products. It is an independent display of satellite thermal detections with source provenance and timing limitations.
If danger may be immediate
Contact the emergency services available at your location and follow current instructions from local fire, police, civil-protection and emergency-management authorities. Never wait for a satellite point to appear, and never delay following an official warning because the map looks empty or stale.
Do not use ThermalGlobe for navigation, route safety, aviation, dispatch, firefighting or decisions about whether, when or how to evacuate.
Examples of official information systems
Official structures differ by country. The examples below demonstrate the type of source to look for; they do not replace the authority responsible for your exact location.