> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://www.worldmonitor.app/docs/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Thermal Escalation Methodology

> How WorldMonitor clusters FIRMS/VIIRS thermal detections, compares them with local baselines, and assigns thermal escalation status and relevance.

## Overview

Thermal Escalation turns FIRMS/VIIRS hotspot detections into clustered, baseline-aware watch items for the `thermal-escalation` panel. The implementation lives in `scripts/lib/thermal-escalation.mjs`.

## Clustering

Detections are sorted by observation time and grouped by region label. A detection joins the nearest existing cluster in the same region when it falls within `20km`; otherwise it starts a new cluster. Cluster centroids are updated incrementally as detections are added.

Each cluster is assigned to a 0.5-degree baseline cell by rounding latitude and longitude to the nearest 0.5 degrees.

## Baseline and Persistence

The scorer keeps 30 days of cell history and uses the last 7 days as the comparison baseline. For each cluster it computes:

| Metric                  | Meaning                                                      |
| ----------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------ |
| `baselineExpectedCount` | Average prior observation count in the cell                  |
| `baselineExpectedFrp`   | Average prior total fire radiative power in the cell         |
| `countDelta`            | Current observation count minus baseline count               |
| `frpDelta`              | Current total FRP minus baseline FRP                         |
| `zScore`                | Count delta divided by baseline count standard deviation     |
| `persistenceHours`      | Duration since the first current or recent prior observation |

Prior observations within 18 hours extend persistence. The panel display window is 24 hours.

## Status Rules

| Status       | Rule                                                                                                     |
| ------------ | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| `persistent` | `persistenceHours >= 12` and either `countDelta >= 3` or `totalFrp >= 80`                                |
| `spike`      | `zScore >= 2.5`, `countDelta >= 6`, `frpDelta >= 120`, or `observationCount >= 8` with `totalFrp >= 150` |
| `elevated`   | `zScore >= 1.5`, `countDelta >= 3`, `frpDelta >= 50`, or no baseline with `observationCount >= 5`        |
| `normal`     | None of the above                                                                                        |

## Context and Relevance

Conflict adjacency is determined from the cluster's region label, not from a live distance join against conflict events. The current conflict-region allowlist is:

Ukraine, Russia, Israel/Gaza, Syria, Iran, Taiwan, North Korea, Yemen, Myanmar, Sudan, South Sudan, Ethiopia, Somalia, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Libya, Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, Iraq, and Pakistan.

Strategic relevance is assigned as:

| Relevance | Rule                                                                                     |
| --------- | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| `high`    | Conflict-adjacent and status is `spike` or `persistent`                                  |
| `medium`  | Status is `persistent`, total FRP is at least `120`, or persistence is at least 12 hours |
| `low`     | None of the above                                                                        |

The current implementation does not perform infrastructure-proximity matching. `nearbyAssets` is emitted as an empty array until an asset matcher is wired into the seeder.

## Confidence

| Confidence | Rule                                                                                          |
| ---------- | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| `high`     | At least 8 observations, at least 2 unique satellite sources, and at least 4 baseline samples |
| `medium`   | At least 4 observations and at least 2 baseline samples                                       |
| `low`      | Anything below the medium threshold                                                           |

Rows are sorted by relevance, then status severity, total FRP, and observation count.