FSActiveFires - Actual fires in FSX from live real-time data

[freddy]

I came across "FS Active Fires" by accident.

 

I did a forum search and found only one thread in here about it: http://www.orbxsystems.com/forum/topic/86712-a-hot-hazy-gusty-bushfire-day-in-se-queensland ...

 

... so I thought I'd share.

 

"FS Active Fires" is a utility that downloads real-time fire data from the NASA FIRMS website to create fires in Microsoft Flight Simulator.

 

Download link: https://github.com/ollyau/FSActiveFires/releases

 

FSDeveloper.com Forums discussion thread (includes some screenshots): http://www.fsdeveloper.com/forum/threads/global-wildfires-open-source-project-need-programming.428525/

 

NASA FIRMS website: https://earthdata.nasa.gov/data/near-real-time-data/firms

 

It's a simple little utility and it works a treat!

[Sid]

This sounds fantastic Freddy...real-time global fires?! Intriguing! I've often thought data like this integrated into effects in the sim would be very useful for training. Other things like real-time Volcanic eruptions and directions of ash clouds and their effects would be another example...something for P3D v2.? or v3 perhaps?

 

Anyone else using this? Stable? Low impact on performance? Easy to install? Any thoughts? I think I'll look into it! Thanks for the heads up Freddy!

[spud]

I've had it installed for a few weeks and it gets active fire info from NASA's website.  If a fire is active in real life it will show in the sim if you fly to the location.  Or it has a jump to a random fire option as well.  Much like the old FS9 'Blaze' program.

You can select from the entire world or 12 regions for fires and I see no slow down of the sim during usage.  It is a nice add-on.

[freddy]

I am running it, it is stable, and I have not noticed any change in performance.

 

As for installing, "FS Active Fires" is just a single EXE program ... so no installer is necessary ... you merely run it when you run FSX.

 

Because it is a single EXE that you just run, there's no harm in testing it.  Then, if it turns out not to be for you, you'd merely need to delete the EXE off your system and you're done.

[HercFan]

I've been using it for many months. Actually, this is what I use to decide my flights in the FTX world. I dl the active file in KML (for the entire Word), load up Google Earth, and then decide which fire I want to go out and find, starting from a departure airport of my choice. The challenge is go out and find the fire. 

 

I just can't give enough praise about this little plug-in. 

 

There is SO MUCH possibilities with this tool (VAs based on active situations; flying groups; etc.). 

[HercFan]

An addition. If anyone wants assistance in running this small gem, I will monitor this thread and try to help. 

[Meta]

This is really cool!  Maybe someday we'll have FS Traffic Jam, FS Outdoor Event, FS Bird Migration....and trains. 

[HercFan]

Just adding a few notes to those interested. Basically a step-by-step.

 

Thanks to Freddy for the initial post. 

 

Essentially, once you have dl and installed it is simply a process of running the .exe once you loaded up FSX. You will need to click on |install model" only once. 

 

Here is a fast link to the NASA KML files: https://earthdata.nasa.gov/data/near-real-time-data/firms/active-fire-data (simply choose the KML option).

 

This is what FSActiveFires uses as a resource.

 

So what I do is go on that link and download the World 24h data (or you can limit it). Then I load it in Google Earth, and include that KML on top of my FTX regions KML. Then I go looking for a fun flight option and do my flight planning.

 

When all of that is said and done, I close Google Earth. You then do your thing and load up FSX plus whatever extra add-on you run. Of course I select my determined starting point. Once all that done, I start the FSActiveFire .exe (I have it on my desktop). All that is required is to click to select your "region", and then click on "download data". Once that is done, you click "connect". You will note a message in FSX saying it just connected.

 

Then I minimize FSActiveFires, bring FSX back to full screen, and off I go finding that particular fire from my start point.

 

What "makes it" for me is that it's how I discover a lot of new places without wondering "where should I fly now...". So I can have "live situations" to go discover in ALL FTX regions. 

 

Hope those interested enjoy it as much as I do. 

 

Cheers!

[Penzoil3]

with a 3ks download speed, it's not worth 38 hours to down load. Thanks but no thanks.

[Fredrik Johnsson]

Anyone running it in P3Dv2?

[Dieter]

The small download you need doesn't take 38 hours! It's just a small file of 500 kb.

The download link is provided in the first posting.

[Guenseli]

Thanks for that nice tool.

I run it in P3D v2.4 and it works - probably.

 

I found one fire in south america and one in africa, looks great.

 

 

But I downloaded the MKL 24h data and had a look in USA as example around LA04 or 51LA (airport icaos)

Also in south america SWNO I found in the MKL file several fires, but it was only one in FS

There are several fires in the MKL file, but no one with FSActiveFires.

Do I something wrong?

 

Aren't the KML files the same like what FSAF shows?

 

Would be great if the tool has the ability to generate a KML file of the exact fires which are produced in FS.

[Racartron]

The 1.5 beta file took less than a second to download.

[HercFan]

Some visual here: http://www.orbxsystems.com/forum/topic/88211-fsactivefire-example/

[tuisong]

Thanks for the heads up Freddy, I'll be getting it too.

[freddy]

But I downloaded the MKL 24h data and had a look in USA as example around LA04 or 51LA (airport icaos)

Also in south america SWNO I found in the MKL file several fires, but it was only one in FS

There are several fires in the MKL file, but no one with FSActiveFires.

Do I something wrong?

 

If you are referring to the "Fires in simulation:" number ... this shows the number of fires that are actually within visual range of your user aircraft.  So, the program may download thousands of fires (worldwide), but the "Fires in simulation:" number may only be, say, 10 or 3 or 8 or something like that.  This visual range is set at 20nm, and cannot be changed. Apparently 20nm is the visual distance at which FSX is programmed to show effects models to the user. At visual distances further than 20nm, FSX does not show the effects models.

 

So, if you are seeing several fires in the MKL, but "FS Active Fires" is showing "Fires in simulation: 0", then that means you are not within 20nm of any fires.  As soon as you enter visual range of a fire (within 20nm), the "Fires in simulation:" number will change to 1 ... etc, etc.

[freddy]

And here's some more information that may prove helpful:

 

(from one of the forum posts at FSDeveloper.com: http://www.fsdeveloper.com/forum/threads/global-wildfires-open-source-project-need-programming.428525/)

 

 

====================================================

 

The Minimum Confidence slider in "FS Active Fires" sets a threshold for the minimum detection confidence attribute of the data -- only data with a detection confidence higher than what you set will appear in-sim. If you want to know what the detection confidence means, NASA has a couple passages on that:

 

From the FIRMS FAQ:

 

What is the detection confidence?

 

A detection confidence is intended to help users gauge the quality of individual active fire pixels. This confidence estimate, which ranges between 0% and 100%, is used to assign one of the three fire classes (low-confidence fire, nominal-confidence fire, or high-confidence fire) to all fire pixels within the fire mask. The confidence field should be used with caution; it is likely that it will vary in meaning in different parts of the world. Nevertheless some of our end users have found such a field to be useful in excluding false positive occurrences of fire.

 

And from the data's about page:

 

This value is based on a collection of intermediate algorithm quantities used in the detection process. It is intended to help users gauge the quality of individual hotspot/fire pixels. Confidence estimates range between 0 and 100% and are assigned one of the three fire classes (low-confidence fire, nominal-confidence fire, or high-confidence fire).

 

FS Active Fires currently provides no way of removing individual fires from the simulation. Third parties may use the the undocumented FS10DeleteAIAircraft function call in ACONTAIN.DLL to remove SimObjects (e.g. the fires created by FS Active Fires) if their addon is built as a DLL and running inside the FSX process space.

 

====================================================

 

I use this slider to configure "FS Active Fires" and prevent it from showing me smaller fires such as suburban house fires.  (Yes, "FS Active Fires" can show suburban house fires!)  The issue I have with it showing me suburban house fires is that the fire effect used by "FS Active Fires" covers quite a large area. And, whilst that is fantastic for bush and forest fires, it's not that great for a small fire like a suburban house fire.  When flying in cities, the suburban house fires tend to look too big and go over roads etc. It appears just a little unrealistic for my liking - especially with ORBX scenery where cars drive on those roads and thus THROUGH THE FIRES! .  But, with this slider I can eliminate those smaller (house) fires, and only get forest fires instead ... thus the realism (for me) is restored.  Some people may like to see the suburban house fires.  That's fine.  It's a personal preference thing.

[Dieter]

It might be interesting to find a fire in an area of your choice:

Go to
https://firms.modaps.eosdis.nasa.gov/firemap/

- Choose
Satellite Source: Terra Only
Time period: past 24 hours

==> Update

The map (not really detailed)  can be moved by pressing left mouse key.

You will see fires indicates by red dots.
By pressing  the magnifying glass  in the upper left corner the map display can be increased.
 
- Now click "arrow and i", mouse pointer will turn into a cross.
By clicking on one of the red (hot) spots you'll get the total numbers of fires detected and the coordinates (degree,decimal).

These values must be roughly converted to meet FSX coordinates inputs.

Now you can place your airplane to this hot spot andyou will see the fire(s).

(FS Active Fires only adds fires within a 20 kilometer radius of the user to increase performance.)

[Guenseli]

I tried it again today and then everything was ok.

The difference was, the tool has downloaded yesterday about 8000 datas, and today over 16000.

 

And therefore today every fire in Google Earth was also in the sim.

 

Maybe there've been some problems with data download yesterday

 

 

Thanks

[freddy]

Glad you managed to get it downloaded and working.  Enjoy!

[Dieter]

You can also download latest "Active Fire Datas" as KML file to get the hotspots displayed in Google Earth.

https://earthdata.nasa.gov/data/near-real-time-data/firms/active-fire-data#tab-content-2

[windquest]

To add to the effect you need a water bomber or a fire bomber.  For those interested check out Buffalo, they fly a cl-215 water bomber and c-54 fire bombers ( I know, shameless plug)...anyway, someone might be interested.

Henry

[HercFan]

You can also download latest "Active Fire Datas" as KML file to get the hotspots displayed in Google Earth.https://earthdata.nasa.gov/data/near-real-time-data/firms/active-fire-data#tab-content-2

That's exactly what i do before every single flight.

Download the World kml, load in Google Earth, add my FTX regions layers, and then pick a fire, a starting point.

Every flight is different, and my challenge is to go out and find the fire.

And with Global and Vector coming my way soon....

[freddy]

A new version of "FS Active Fires" has just been released.

 

Get it from here: https://github.com/ollyau/FSActiveFires/releases"]https://github.com/ollyau/FSActiveFires/releases

 

There are now additional command line arguments to automatically download data, set the confidence level, and connect to Flight Simulator on startup.

 

Example usage:

 

FSActiveFires.exe -confidence:70 -download:"U.S.A. (Conterminous) and Hawaii" -connect

 

Confidence supports integers on the interval [0,100]. Download is case sensitive and supports the same entries you see in the drop down.

 

And, here's an example exe.xml if you want to automatically launch FS Active Fires with FSX:

<SimBase.Document Type="Launch" version="1,0">

  <Descr>Launch</Descr>

  <Filename>exe.xml</Filename>

  <Disabled>False</Disabled>

  <Launch.ManualLoad>False</Launch.ManualLoad>

  <Launch.Addon>

    <Name>FSActiveFires</Name>

    <Disabled>False</Disabled>

    <ManualLoad>False</ManualLoad>

    <Path>REPLACE WITH PATH TO FSActiveFires.exe</Path>

    <CommandLine>-confidence:70 -download:"U.S.A. (Conterminous) and Hawaii" -connect</CommandLine>

  </Launch.Addon>

</SimBase.Document>

[RobdeVries]

Thanks!!

[Orbx45]

How do you install the file?

[derekG]

Orbx45,

 

It's a stand alone exe file. When you have FSX running just run the Active Fires file (I think you need to select an "install model" option first time you use it.)

I keep a shortcut on my desktop so I can switch it on or off as I please.

 

HercFan gives loads of good info earlier in this post.

 

Derek.