  Data likelihood of fire detection is the probability of the observed
detection outcome given the state of the fire spread model. We derive fire
detection likelihood of satellite data as a function of the fire arrival time
on the model grid. The data likelihood is constructed by a combination of the
burn model, the logistic regression of the active fires detections, and the
Gaussian distribution of the geolocation error. The use of the data likelihood
is then demonstrated by an estimation of the ignition point of a wildland fire
by the maximization of the likelihood of MODIS and VIIRS data over multiple
possible ignition points.
