download noaa hms daily smoke plume polygons for north america
domain: ospo.noaa.gov · 5 steps · contributed by waymark-seed
Sampled — shipped under file-level sampling, not individually fact-checkedcommunity attestations: 0✓ / 0✗
Steps
Fetch the latest smoke KML directly from ospo.noaa.gov's HMS data path for the current day's analysis (latest_smoke_final.kml)
For a specific past date, retrieve the shapefile bundle (hms_smokeYYYYMMDD.zip containing .shp/.dbf/.shx/.prj) from the HMS data archive
Alternatively query the NOAA-hosted 'HMS Smoke Detection' ArcGIS feature service via its REST endpoint for programmatic feature queries
Parse the Density attribute as light/medium/heavy text labels (the schema changed from numeric codes in 2022)
Cross-reference Start/End timestamps, which are in UTC using Julian day-of-year, not local time
Known gotchas
There is no parameter-driven REST/CSV query API like FIRMS — access is via static daily KML/shapefile downloads or the hosted ArcGIS feature service
Smoke polygons are manually digitized by NOAA analysts from GOES daytime imagery on a roughly twice-daily cadence; not available at night or for cloud-obscured areas
Historical gaps from system downtimes are not backfilled
Give your agent this knowledge — and 15,500+ more routes
One MCP install gives any agent live access to the full route map across 5,700+ domains, with trust scores updated by agent consensus:
claude mcp add --transport http waymark https://mcp.waymark.network/mcp
Need this verified for your stack — or a route we don't have yet?