Over the past 15 years meteorological satellites have been increasingly used for land surface applications, including fire detection and monitoring. Several automated algorithms now provide satellite derived fire products in near real time for hazards applications and to better understand the extent and impact of biomass burning on the global environment. These environmental satellite derived fire products have been underutilized due in part to the lack of information regarding product validity. In this paper we present results from several ground truth verification case studies for the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES) Wildfire Automated Biomass Burning Algorithm (WF_ABBA) fire product in North and South America. In North America the WF_ABBA has successfully identified and monitored wildfires throughout the U.S. and Canada. During the 2002 fire season in North America the GOES WF_ABBA detected many of the conflagrations in the Western U.S. Validation studies in Quebec, Canada have shown that the GOES WF_ABBA was the first to detect many fires in remote regions at northerly latitudes. Some of the fires were as small as 2 to 3 hectares in size. In the state of Acre, Brazil ground truth studies performed during the 2002 fire season provided new insights regarding the capability of the GOES WF_ABBA for monitoring fires associated with deforestation and agricultural management.