In recent years, the heat status of the earth surface has been detected by the infrared radiation of the earth—gas system, and the satellite thermal infrared remote sensing has made remarkable achievements in earthquake prediction. This paper reviews the research results of infrared remote sensing data which is applied to earthquake prediction, expounds the progress and application of the earthquake thermal infrared short term prediction, and finds that the improvement of infrared short term and impending precursor extraction method can effectively remove most of the non seismic factors, reduce the difficulty of determining the three elements of earthquake, and improve the reliability of earthquake occurrence time and location prediction. This paper also exhibits the exploration and development of the fault activity by using thermal infrared remote sensing information. Most of the research can obtain the infrared radiation characteristics of the fault zone and the related information of the activity changes. Although the different variations of the intensity and amplitude in fault segments can not be completely attributed as faulting anomaly before the earthquake, however, the results of the study can provide some information to understand the regional tectonic deformation and fault activity strength, provide some clues to determine the location of the epicenter and active faults, and give some help for the long term prediction of regional seismic hazard. At last we discuss the mechanism of the earthquake thermal infrared anomaly. In view of the gap between the application of the technology and the ideal effect, this paper proposes the research emphasis of future work.