The Digital Earth Australia Hotspots web service has been developed as part of the Digital Earth Australia Hotspots national bushfire monitoring system. The service delivers hotspot data derived from (a growing number of) satellite-born instruments that detect light in the thermal wavelengths. The colour of the spot represents the time the Hotspot was last observed by a passing satellite (e.g. 0-2 hours). The colour does not indicate severity. Typically, the satellite data are processed with a specific algorithm that highlights areas with an unusually high temperature. In principle, however, Hotspots may be sourced from non-satellite sources.

The AVHRR sensor collects global data on a daily basis for a variety of land, ocean, and atmospheric applications. Specific applications include forest fire detection, vegetation analysis, weather analysis and forecasting, climate research and prediction, global sea surface temperature measurements, ocean dynamics research and search and rescue. The first operational NOAA satellite (NOAA-6) was launched in 1979. This was followed by a series of additional NOAA satellites with the latest launch being NOAA-16 in September 2000. NOAA's 11, 12, 14, 15 and 16 are all still transmitting data. The AVHRR sensor is a five or six channel (depending on the model) scanner, sensing the visible, near-infrared, and thermal infrared portions of the electromagnetic spectrum. It provides global on board collection of data over a 2399 km swath. The sensor orbits the earth 14 times each day from an altitude of 833 km. ACRES keeps a 7 day old rolling archive which is available free to registered users. Acquisitions older than 7 days are archived by CSIRO Earth Observation Centre.

The Digital Earth Australia Hotspots web service has been developed as part of the Digital Earth Australia Hotspots national bushfire monitoring system. The service delivers hotspot data derived from (a growing number of) satellite-born instruments that detect light in the thermal wavelengths. The colour of the spot represents the time the Hotspot was last observed by a passing satellite (e.g. 0-2 hours). The colour does not indicate severity. Typically, the satellite data are processed with a specific algorithm that highlights areas with an unusually high temperature. In principle, however, Hotspots may be sourced from non-satellite sources. Lineage (for eCatID 101800 and 101780): The Sentinel Hotspots system was originally developed in 2010. The Sentinel Hotspots webservice was republished in 2016 as part of a platform upgrade. The Digital Earth Australia Hotspots system and webservices was redeveloped in 2019 as part of a platform upgrade.