Measured earliness
“Faster than the press, really?” Fair question — the only honest answer is a measurement. For every corroborated fire of the last 72 hours, this page compares two public, verifiable timestamps:
- First kanari signal: the time of the first satellite pass that saw the fire (VIIRS, GOES or Meteosat — UTC time supplied by NASA and EUMETSAT, not by us);
- First press article: the publication time of the first article detected by our monitoring (GDELT) mentioning this fire.
The gap between the two is the measured lead. It probably underestimates the real lead over public awareness (a published article is not yet read), and it says NOTHING about a lead over emergency services: firefighters have their own channels (emergency calls, watchtowers, cameras) that are often faster than the press.
Measured cases (rolling 72 h)
20 fires with dated press · median lead: 48h 28m
| Place | 1st satellite signal (UTC) | 1st article (UTC) | Lead |
|---|---|---|---|
| Summerland | 08-12 21:25 | 08-15 18:15 | 68h 50m |
| Llandovery | 08-13 01:11 | 08-15 19:00 | 65h 49m |
| Llandovery | 08-13 11:47 | 08-15 19:00 | 55h 13m |
| Llandovery | 08-13 12:40 | 08-15 19:00 | 54h 20m |
| Piau | 08-13 16:28 | 08-15 19:15 | 50h 47m |
| Piau | 08-13 16:28 | 08-15 19:15 | 50h 47m |
| Piau | 08-13 16:28 | 08-15 19:15 | 50h 47m |
| Piau | 08-13 16:28 | 08-15 19:15 | 50h 47m |
| La Vega | 08-13 18:17 | 08-15 20:15 | 49h 58m |
| Caparrapí | 08-13 17:32 | 08-15 18:00 | 48h 28m |
| Caparrapí | 08-13 18:17 | 08-15 18:00 | 47h 43m |
| Caparrapí | 08-13 18:17 | 08-15 18:00 | 47h 43m |
| Caparrapí | 08-13 18:17 | 08-15 18:00 | 47h 43m |
| Summerland | 08-13 20:12 | 08-15 18:15 | 46h 3m |
| San Bernardino | 08-14 09:26 | 08-15 20:15 | 34h 49m |
| Ourense | 08-14 14:10 | 08-15 20:15 | 30h 5m |
| Piau | 08-14 16:09 | 08-15 19:15 | 27h 6m |
| Caparrapí | 08-14 18:53 | 08-15 18:00 | 23h 7m |
| Caparrapí | 08-14 21:44 | 08-15 18:00 | 20h 16m |
| Llandovery | 08-15 02:13 | 08-15 19:00 | 16h 47m |
Continuously recomputed — data as of 2026-08-15 21:03 UTC. Cases where the press beat the satellite are excluded from the table (they exist: ground witnesses, urban fires).
Case study: the Diois fire (Drôme, France), August 3, 2026
On August 3, 2026 at 16:00 UTC, the Meteosat MTG geostationary satellite picked up a hotspot in the south-east of the Drôme department (Diois area, anchored to Serres, the nearest town in our gazetteer). Within 2.5 hours, kanari accumulated 174 satellite detections on this fire, with a peak measured intensity of 1,193 MW — the most powerful French fire recorded in our archive since it opened. Every detection is timestamped by EUMETSAT (one image every 10 minutes), not by us.
On August 3, 2026, kanari measured a 1,193 MW fire in the Drôme (France): 174 satellite detections in 2.5 hours, the first at 16:00 UTC. Source: kanari.io, Meteosat MTG data (EUMETSAT), CC BY 4.0.
This case shows the measurement density of geostationary monitoring, not a lead over official alerts: we have no reliable press timestamp for this fire. The full chronology is public: permanent fire page.
Limits
- Press monitoring (GDELT) does not see everything: a fire may be covered by a local outlet without appearing here.
- The “first signal” is the first satellite pass: actual ignition happens earlier.
- The sample is short (72 h) and varies with the news cycle: this is a measuring instrument, not a sales pitch.