Spatiotemporal Analysis of VIIRS Satellite Observations and Network Traffic During the 2025 Manitoba Wildfires

Abstract

Climate change has intensified extreme weather and wildfire conditions globally. Canada experienced record-breaking wildfires in 2023 and 2025, burning millions of hectares and severely impacting the Prairie provinces, with Manitoba facing its worst season in 30 years. These events highlight the urgent need to understand and mitigate escalating fire risks. While existing research largely focuses on wildfire management approaches, few studies have explored the relationship between user network traffic and wildfire activity, despite the potential of such correlations to provide valuable spatiotemporal insights into wildfire dynamics. This paper investigates the relationship between wildfire intensity and network performance during the 2025 Manitoba wildfire season, using Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) satellite-derived Fire Radiative Power data and large-scale Speedtest measurements. We found statistically significant correlations between wildfire intensity and several network performance metrics in both the province-wide and region-wide case studies, as measured by Spearman's correlation coefficients ($ρ$) and corresponding p-values. Throughput-related metrics showed inverse correlations with wildfire intensity (e.g., download speed: $ρ= -0.214$, $p\_value = 0.004$), whereas latency-related metrics showed positive correlations (e.g., round-trip time latency: $ρ= 0.162$, $p\_value = 0.0308$). The findings suggest satellite fire indicators and network performance metrics together can reveal vulnerabilities during extreme environmental events and support diaster response and recovery efforts.