name: NASA FIRMS FinOps
description: >
  Financial operations guidance for the NASA Fire Information for Resource
  Management System (FIRMS) API. The API is a free public service operated by
  NASA's Land, Atmosphere Near real-time Capability for Earth Observation
  (LANCE) program; there are no direct monetary costs for consumers.
url: https://firms.modaps.eosdis.nasa.gov/api/

cost:
  model: free
  currency: USD
  notes: >
    The NASA FIRMS API is provided at no charge as a public government service.
    There are no subscription fees, per-request charges, data access fees, or
    overage penalties. MAP_KEY registration is free and requires only basic
    contact information.

considerations:

  - category: Registration
    description: >
      Obtaining a MAP_KEY is free and requires registration via the FIRMS
      download portal. The key unlocks area-based queries and data availability
      endpoints. No credit card or payment information is requested.

  - category: Egress and Storage
    description: >
      Fire detection data is returned as CSV text or KMZ files. Consumers
      storing or caching large volumes of historical data (e.g., full global
      VIIRS NRT archives across multiple years) should account for cloud storage
      and egress costs on their own hosting infrastructure.

  - category: Compute for Large Queries
    description: >
      Queries spanning large bounding boxes and multi-day ranges generate
      substantial response payloads. Processing and parsing these on consumer
      infrastructure may increase cloud compute costs at high query volumes.

  - category: Third-Party Integrations
    description: >
      Some commercial GIS platforms and API aggregators re-expose FIRMS data
      with their own pricing tiers. Always verify whether integration targets
      the official FIRMS endpoint or a commercial wrapper to avoid unexpected
      charges.

  - category: Self-Hosted Mirror
    description: >
      Organizations requiring guaranteed availability or higher throughput
      beyond the 5,000 transactions per 10 minutes can archive FIRMS data
      locally. Cloud infrastructure costs (compute, storage, CDN egress) would
      then apply to the self-hosted mirror.

optimization:
  - tip: Request the smallest bounding box that covers your area of interest to minimize transaction consumption per query.
  - tip: Use the data availability endpoint before issuing fire detection queries to confirm data exists for the target date range.
  - tip: Cache CSV responses locally; historical standard processing data is static once published and does not change.
  - tip: Batch requests across time rather than issuing parallel queries with the same MAP_KEY to stay within the 10-minute rate window.
  - tip: Use the KML footprints endpoint (no MAP_KEY required) for quick regional visualization to conserve MAP_KEY transactions.
  - tip: Use MODIS SP (standard processing) data for historical analysis; reserve NRT queries for operational near-real-time use cases.