It’s beneficial to improve the recognition accuracy of infrared target in use of short wave infrared absorption band images. The radiation features of ground high temperature target that can be detected by short wave infrared absorption channels are influenced by atmospheric parameters, remote sensor parameters except for the temperature of the target. For different atmospheric parameters, the radiation data of forest fire and background were obtained systematically by simulation method and an analysis were carried out between them. Results showed that the bandwidth played a major role in the SNR of detecting high temperature targets, and the atmospheric model was in the second place. In the short wave infrared water absorption channel, the radiation features of the forest fire and the background were significantly different. The total radiation on the pupil of the remote sensor of the background around the 4.3 μm is mostly affected by path radiation, while around the 2.7 μm it mostly affected by atmospheric column water vapor.