This tutorial is part 14 of the OSINT At Home series. The tutorial is an explainer of how to find fires from space using satellite imagery and geospatial data.

This tutorial specifically focusses on how to use heat data to assist in the geolocation and verification of footage and images, as well as identifying areas where conflict may be occurring, and even monitor fires from space for environmental purposes. Using FIRMS in the verification of what happens on the ground, and to observe conflicts and environmental impact is a musthave for anyone trying to improve their GEOINT or OSINT techniques.

Finding fires are a crucial asset for anyone curious in observing the world from afar. Whether you’re a journalist, investigator or researcher, finding fires from space can be such an important part to starting off an investigation.

Fires are interesting for the fact that they’re important to monitor for natural reasons, but even more important to monitor when they’re caused by people. In most cases, I find a lot of my work observing fires or heat signatures in, and around conflicts where fire is used as a weapon. While looking at satellite images of fires might seem okay, each of those data points represents what is likely a horrific story impacting human life, and involving potential human rights abuses.

The tools covered in this tutorial include NASA FIRMS – which stands for Fire Information Resource Management System, Google Earth and Sentinel Hub.

The OSINT At Home series is useful for those looking to find digital breadcrumbs and pick up some methods of open source intelligence (OSINT), digital investigations and good old plain research. No matter who you are, or where you are in the world, you can follow these tutorials from home with publicly available information to answer questions such as who, what, where and when.

TOOLS
Google Earth Pro (desktop): https://www.google.com/earth/download...
NASA FIRMS: https://firms.modaps.eosdis.nasa.gov/
Sentinel Hub: https://apps.sentinelhub.com/eobrowser

TUTORIAL RESOURCES
Link to video from Myanmar: https://twitter.com/BenDoBrown/status...
Link to FIRMS location: https://firms.modaps.eosdis.nasa.gov/...
Coordinates of village: 22.358312, 96.060613

MORE RESOURCES
Myanmar Witness: Fire map of Myanmar identifying burned villages since September 2021. This map uses FIRMS as well as other verification methods to identify burned villages https://www.myanmarwitness.org/firemap
Bellingcat: FIRMS data and satellite monitoring of fires for environmental investigations = https://www.bellingcat.com/resources/...
Amnesty International: Using VIIRS Fire Data for Human Rights Research https://citizenevidence.org/2021/02/2...
GPS World: Visualizing the Australian bushfires through satellites and maps https://www.gpsworld.com/visualizing...
Ocelli Project: Satellite imagery shows how some villages in Rakhine State were wiped off the map and buried under new construction https://ocelli.c4ads.org/investigations

CREDITS FOR THIS TUTORIAL
Footage used for tutorial purposes:
Mariupol drone footage: https://twitter.com/Militarylandnet/s...
Myanmar fire footage: video from Myanmar: https://twitter.com/BenDoBrown/status...
Music Intro: World’s Fair – God Mode
Music Title and End: Dhaka by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/...
Source: http://incompetech.com/music/royalty...
Artist: http://incompetech.com/