Method and limits
Fast observations, clearly bounded.
REYKR provides information for situational awareness. It never replaces local emergency alerts, instructions or on-the-ground judgement.
Ces informations sont basées sur des données satellitaires — suivez toujours les consignes des autorités locales.
Source hierarchy
01 · Official
Emergency services and public authorities are the authority for closures, evacuations and operational status.
02 · Satellite
Meteosat (EUMETSAT) scans all of Europe roughly every ten minutes and carries a calibrated fire product that measures radiated power. VIIRS (NASA) adds a more precise 375 m observation footprint a few times a day.
03 · Public reports
Reports from the public can add context, but they remain unverified until checked against stronger evidence.
Satellite
Three layers, three jobs
REYKR overlays three kinds of satellite observation. Each answers one question, and none of them replaces the others.
Meteosat (EUMETSAT)
Scans all of Europe roughly every ten minutes. It is what notices that something new is burning.
It cannot measure size on its own — a hot pixel is a location, not a magnitude.
The calibrated Meteosat fire product
Measures how much energy a fire is radiating — the closest thing to "how big" this system has in near real time.
The measurement has a floor. Fires radiating below it do not register at all.
VIIRS (NASA)
Passes overhead a few times a day at much finer resolution (375 m) and pins down precisely where a fire is.
Between passes it says nothing. For hours at a time, VIIRS simply is not looking.
Day / night
The daylight limitation
In daylight, bright dry ground can look like heat to the ten-minute layer, so REYKR does not raise an alarm on that layer alone during the day. A daylight fire too small to register in the energy measurement is shown on the map, but not alarmed. At night the same layer is reliable and alarms normally. The same reasoning sets what “confirmed” means: seeing the same hot patch again and again does not make it a fire, because sunlit dry ground is persistent by nature. A fire is only marked confirmed once its energy has been measured or a 375 m observation has pinned it down — so a small, real fire can sit at “seen” for hours, and that is the honest state rather than a gap in the data.
Satellite
No detection is not safety
Cloud cover, a missed pass, or heat below a sensor’s floor all read exactly the same as "nothing here." REYKR’s honest answer in that case is unknown — the interface never reads that as safe.
Data checked
Everything carries its age
Every reading on REYKR is labelled with how old it is. A measurement from 40 minutes ago is shown as 40 minutes old, always — never presented as if it were current.
No measurable activity in recent satellite observations
We never say a fire is out
Only an official authority closes a fire. REYKR’s own silence means only that no satellite-measurable activity is currently seen — it never means extinguished, and re-ignition after a quiet period is expected, not a bug.
UTC · day / night
Like compared with like
Activity trends compare the same local phase across days. A night observation is never used to claim a fall from an afternoon peak.
What REYKR is not
- Not an emergency authority.
- Not an evacuation order.
- Not a substitute for 112 or your national emergency alert system.
- Not a mapped fire perimeter — a measured footprint is an observation, not a survey line.