InciWeb (WFIGS) wildfire-near-me Tidbyt app

A Pixlet app for the Tidbyt that shows active US wildfires within a configurable radius of a reference point. Data comes from NIFC's WFIGS feature service — the canonical source for active US wildfire incidents (the legacy InciWeb /api/v1/ endpoint the project is informally named after went 404).

See design-notes.md for layout choices, threat thresholds, and the ArcGIS field map. Licensed under MIT — © 2026 Brian W Bush.

What it shows

The nearest active wildfire that is roughly upwind of the configured point — the fire most likely to send smoke and ash this way. "Roughly upwind" = bearing from your point within a distance-dependent windward sector of where the wind is currently coming from (close fires need tight alignment; distant fires get a wider sector because their plumes have had more lateral spread).

┌────────────┬──────────────────┐
│            │ Morrill          │   ← fire name (marquee-scrolls if long)
│  3 🔥      │           642k ac│   ← upwind fire count + flame icon
│            │ WNW         100% │   ← compass to fire (left), containment (right)
│   W        │             287km│   ← distance to fire, right-justified
│  (color)   │                  │
└────────────┴──────────────────┘

When nothing is upwind:

┌────────────┬──────────────────┐
│            │                  │
│    0       │     ALL          │
│            │    CLEAR         │
│    W       │  (3 in range)    │   ← total active fires in range (for context)
│  (green)   │                  │
└────────────┴──────────────────┘

• Big tile: number of upwind fires (top) and the wind source compass at your location (bottom). Threat-colored background — green when zero, otherwise the worst threat among the upwind set.
• Threat color (left tile background):
  • green — no fires upwind
  • yellow — upwind fire(s) present but distant or well-contained
  • orange — nearest upwind fire is within 100 km and < 75% contained
  • dark red — nearest upwind fire is large (≥ 500 ac), uncontained (< 50%), and within 50 km
• Right column when an upwind fire is present (4 rows): name in navy (marquees if long), size with ac suffix and k/M magnitude prefix, compass-to-fire + containment %, and distance in km.

Data sources

Two endpoints, both free and unauthenticated:

GET https://services3.arcgis.com/T4QMspbfLg3qTGWY/arcgis/rest/services/
    WFIGS_Incident_Locations_Current/FeatureServer/0/query
    ?geometry={lon},{lat}&geometryType=esriGeometryPoint&inSR=4326
    &distance={radius_km}&units=esriSRUnit_Kilometer
    &where=IncidentTypeCategory='WF'
    &outFields=IncidentName,IncidentSize,PercentContained,POOState,POOCounty
    &returnGeometry=true&f=json&resultRecordCount=100
    &orderByFields=IncidentSize+DESC

GET https://api.open-meteo.com/v1/forecast
    ?latitude={lat}&longitude={lon}
    &current=wind_direction_10m,wind_speed_10m

NIFC's WFIGS refreshes every few minutes; we poll every 10 minutes (ttl_seconds=600). Open-Meteo's surface wind is cached for 30 minutes (ttl_seconds=1800) since wind doesn't change minute-to-minute.

Setup

1. Enter the dev shell:

   nix develop
   

2. Create config.yaml:

   cp config-example.yaml config.yaml
   ${EDITOR:-vi} config.yaml
   

   The default location is 766 S Martin St, Longmont (matches the AQ app). Adjust latitude, longitude, and radius_km to taste. 200 km covers the Front Range plus the adjacent plains and foothills (the 2020 Cameron Peak / East Troublesome fires reached ~80 km).
3. Sanity-check before deploying:

   ./scripts/check.sh
   

   Verifies WFIGS responds, lists each fire in range sorted by distance with size and containment, and reports which threat-color tile the app would render.
4. One-shot push:

   ./scripts/deploy.sh
   

5. Daemon (container):

   ./scripts/build-container.sh
   podman kube play --replace inciweb.yaml
   podman logs -f inciweb-tidbyt
   

Files

main.star	The Pixlet app (Starlark). Two-tile layout, same shape as the AQ + Tor apps.
flake.nix	Nix dev shell + pixlet derivation + container image.
config-example.yaml	Template. Copy to config.yaml (gitignored).
scripts/check.sh	Pre-deploy sanity check.
scripts/preview.sh	pixlet serve for browser preview.
scripts/render.sh	Render one frame to out.webp.
scripts/deploy.sh	Render and pixlet push once.
scripts/build-container.sh	Build the OCI image with config baked in.
scripts/run-container.sh	Run the push-daemon container with podman run.
inciweb.yaml	Podman kube spec for the daemon pod.
design-notes.md	Layout rationale, threshold values, ArcGIS schema.

Notes and caveats

• US wildfires only. WFIGS is the federal inter-agency layer. Canadian / Mexican fires don't appear, even if their smoke is reaching you.
• WFIGS lag. The feature service refreshes every few minutes for active incidents; reported fire size is typically the last reliable on-the-ground measure, not real-time.
• PercentContained can be null. Brand-new fires often have no containment field yet — we treat null as "?" in the display but ignore it for color logic (treat as 0%).
• Wind is surface (10 m). Open-Meteo's wind_direction_10m is what the smoke at ground level should follow. Upper-level smoke transport can differ; if you see haze from a fire that the app says is downwind, that's why.
• Windward sector grows with distance. At the defaults: 20° at 0 km, 35° at 100 km, 50° at 200 km, capped at 90° beyond ~470 km. Close fires need to be tightly aligned with the wind; distant fires get a wider sector because their plumes disperse laterally as they travel. See design-notes.md for the model and tuning constants.
• Wind direction filters before distance. A 5 km fire to the south won't show as the "nearest upwind" if the wind is from the west — instead a 200 km western fire will. That's the design: smoke transport matters more than proximity.