Forest fire is an annual hazard threatening the livelihood in Asia destroying considerable amount of forest lands and polluting the environment affecting the health of inhabitants. Occurrences of forest fire vary with climatic variations of countries due to their spatial location; October-November in Indonesia, December-February in Cambodia, Thailand, Lao PDR, Myanmar and Vietnam experiencing forest fires in February-April. Geoinformatics Center of Asian Institute of Technology was involved in developing a satellite observation system using MODIS data received at the center since 2006 to capture and monitor forest fire locations, daily propagation and related them to land use. The system also provides active forest fire classified by country, which can be visualized in Google Earth. System is already in place to cover large part of Asia that is covered by the reception at the center. The system was further improved to national level to ensure more information of active fire occurrences in administrative levels. A prototype of integrating national level administrative boundaries and number of other information was developed to Lao PDR. This system provides forest fire active location with information such as provinces and districts names in tabular format and through maps showing the spatial location and distribution. The information would help the local administration locating active forest fire location either by maps or using village and district names to bring necessary counter measures more effectively and timely. The system is available through the website of the Geoinformatics Center for free access of the data.
