A method for automatically detecting and mapping fires based on information extracted from commercial overhead EO/IR imagery, creating geo-referenced files which can be opened in most common geographic information system (GIS) software packages. The method creates a shapefile (*.shp & *.shx) and a Google Earth file (*.kmz) which contain the outlines of the areas from the image being processed with active fire in them, which types of files are typically very small compared to the size of the image file being processed. The method utilizes algorithms designed to process information contained in multi-spectral electro-optical imagery to classify pixels as ‘fire’ or ‘non-fire’. The method also has the ability to identify the approximate length, width, and area of the fires detected.