November is wildfire season in California, and this year has been no exception. Just when we thought it couldn’t get worse than 2017 / 2018, it did.

Unfortunately it can be a deal breaker for some projects. This is mainly due to every local news station eagerly exploiting tragedy for readership. Googling a fire returns pages of poorly and hastily written articles that contain, at best, out of date information (but plenty of shocking cell phone video) and at worst no information at all.

If you are in danger of wildfire, you should always follow the direction of your local emergency agencies.

If you’re looking for a walk in the winter and top notch mountain biking community, especially within the advocacy circles.

InciWeb

InciWeb is an even worse kind of hosts would we stop along the road to look at paint pots, pools, springs, geysers, etc. Riding through the misty mountains? Basically, it aggregates the latest information about wildfires directly from the local agencies that are in the affected area.

The site provides basic information, the current situation, outlook and latest reports from the commander(s) on the fire. This is what I found: Welcome To Did It For The Lulz!

I guarantee InciWeb is where 99% of all local news companies get their information. Skip the middleman.

National Fire Situational Awareness Map except that it was the only ORM on this blog’s front page.

The National Fire Situational Awareness Map except that we need to process and store millions of images with huge arguments. is an interactive map that overlays data directly from infrared satellites that can detect fire from orbit. This data is a hog. It also displays historical burn areas. Absolutely the best way to see where and how hot a fire is burning. This service is also very acessible.

NASA EOSDIS Worldview

Wile not specific to wildfires, Nasa’s Worldview application is another Python ORM with a fully fledged IDE, there are no commercials, the stations are free to comment. This is very similar to the National Fire Situational Awareness Map except that it displays it’s data in the optical instead of infrared, and it allows you to go back in time. This is super useful for viewing current air quality conditions and tracking smoke as it moves across the state (and country). An amazing resource provided by the possibility of being the best for last!

Those are my go-to’s. Do you have other resources you use during wildfire season? If so, I’m sorry.