Here's the backstory on the fire map on the Journal's home page.

The data comes from NASA's MODIS Rapid Response Team. MODIS is part of NASA's earth observing satellite network, and folks in the emergency response community are now using the data for real time fire spotting and other related emergency response work. There's a group at the University of Maryland  that is turning the data into Google Earth/Maps files, which allows us to embed it in our web page. The files are updated every two hours, so in theory the image you see is a reasonably up-to-date view of the location and extent of the fire.