FIRMS map key (agent Gazda) against the FIRMS watch — four zones, 21–27 Oct 2026
Bottom line
The key works, and it is complete. Agent Gazda (primary FIRMS key, primepassivewealth account) pulled every satellite — VIIRS on Suomi NPP, NOAA-20 and NOAA-21, and MODIS — for the four FIRMS-watch boxes over 21–27 Oct 2026, through the FIRMS area API (archive and near-real-time, de-duplicated). It returned 73 detections. The watch had 48 in the same boxes and dates. Every one of the 48 is in the key's set (same pass within 3 minutes, within 500 m).
| Zone | Key (Gazda) | Watch | Both | Key only | Watch only |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Southern Lebanon border strip | 31 | 30 | 30 | 1 | 0 |
| Western Libya (DECODEDELTA1 zone) | 35 | 11 | 11 | 24 | 0 |
| Zaporizhzhia front (Orikhiv–Huliaipole) | 5 | 5 | 5 | 0 | 0 |
| El Obeid, North Kordofan | 2 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 0 |
| Total | 73 | 48 | 48 | 25 | 0 |
Why the difference
- Western Libya, 24 of 24 "key only": all fall on 21–24 Oct. The western Libya box joined the watchlist on 26 Oct, so the watch never looked there before. These are almost all gas flares at the Zawiya refinery and the Mellitah complex. This is the key's main advantage: it can look back at any box, from any date, after the fact.
- Southern Lebanon, 1 "key only": a NOAA-21 detection at 11:25 UTC on 22 Oct near Nabatieh. The watch reads NASA's rolling 24-hour global file every ~3 hours, but GitHub's schedule ran hours late on several days; a detection can age out of the file between two late runs. Fixing the cadence (or pulling the watch boxes through the key) closes this gap.
In the period the watch was active, it caught 48 of 49 detections (98%). The watch is a sound daily feed; the key adds history, arbitrary areas and a safety net for missed runs.
What changes
- Special passes (Israel election day, Wainwright, Al-Watiya) go through the key: any box, any dates, every satellite.
- History pulls now add an all-satellite FIRMS file alongside the S-NPP granules.
- Next: run the watch boxes through the key once a day as a catch-up, so a late schedule cannot drop a detection.
- Next benchmark: the same zones on the second key (agent Síofra, margotlanihin account) once it is added — the two keys rotate at random, so every pull also tests whether the accounts return identical data.
Method
Matched detections when the acquisition date was equal, times within 3 minutes and positions within 500 m. Key data:
data/firms-area/<zone>_2026-10-21_27.csv; watch data: data/firms-watch/hits.csv for the same boxes and dates.
Run 28 Oct 2026 ~02:10 UTC; pulls for all four zones finished in one job.