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Aboudéia fire, 23 December 2017 Aboudéia

Out · last detection 27 Dec 2017, 11:39 UTC

The fire started on 23 December 2017 in Aboudéia, Chad, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,931 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 110th largest in Salamat since 2016 (of 574 with a page). Number 40 in Chad in 2017, of 171.

Burnt area
3,931ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
4days
23 Dec 2017 – 26 Dec 2017
Municipalities hit
1
departments
Started on
23 Dec
2017
Heat detections
120
in a single hotspot: 43 MW
Danger at start
54
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
998MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

27 Dec 2017
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 23 Dec26 Dec

How it evolved, day by day

2324252627

Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.

The weather it burned in

39°high
39km/h · peak gust
11%lowest humidity

It had gone 46 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

2% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 71 ha in 2016.

What happened to each town

  1. Aboudéia where it started
    3,948 ha reached on 23 Dec
    0.3 %

Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance is from the town centre to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.

The weather day by day

ECMWF ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, the standard reference for past weather, and the Canadian Fire Weather Index (the same system Copernicus uses), computed by WorldFires from that data. Days after the fire run until the first rain.

Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)

Day High Min. humidity Peak gust Rain Danger (FWI)
23 Dec 39.4 °C 11 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
24 Dec 37.4 °C 11 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
25 Dec 35.6 °C 13 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
26 Dec 35.4 °C 13 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
27 Dec after 34.5 °C 14 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
28 Dec after 35.4 °C 13 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
29 Dec after 34.8 °C 13 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
30 Dec after 36.8 °C 13 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
31 Dec after 34.8 °C 13 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
1 Jan after 32.9 °C 12 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
2 Jan after 32.2 °C 10 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
3 Jan after 32.3 °C 11 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
4 Jan after 31.1 °C 8 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
5 Jan after 30.7 °C 10 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57

Before and after, from space

Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.

Before · 16 Dec 2017
After · 2 Jan 2018

If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.

Detections table · 120Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
⬇ Download CSV Times in UTC. Each detection is a 375 m pixel: a large fire yields hundreds per pass.
Date and timeSatelliteFRP (MW)LatLon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Chad ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Aboudéia fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 23 December 2017 and 26 December 2017: 4 days between the first and last heat detection of the perimeter.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 3,931 hectares (39.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Aboudéia (3,948 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 39.4 °C, humidity dropped to 11 % and gusts hit 39 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 62, class Extreme.
Where does this data come from?
From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Chad (geoBoundaries). It is not an official report.

Where to verify it

A satellite detection is not an official report. Final figures and the fire’s status are published by each country’s emergency service.

Satellite cross-check

Does something look wrong on this page?

This page is built from satellite data and official records, and it sometimes gets things wrong: the wrong dates, the wrong town, two fires merged into one, or something that was not a wildfire at all. If you know this fire first-hand (you live nearby, saw it, fought it or reported on it), tell us what really happened and we will check it.

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Where this data comes from

The perimeter comes from the Copernicus Global Wildfire Information System (GWIS), which rebuilds it from MODIS and VIIRS heat detections and publishes it under CC BY 4.0. It is not measured on imagery as in Europe, so it is an estimate. Heat detections come from the VIIRS sensors aboard Suomi-NPP and NOAA-20, distributed by NASA FIRMS at 375 m resolution. Municipal boundaries come from geoBoundaries ADM2 (Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Intergovernmental Organisations (CC BY 3.0 IGO)). The area per municipality is computed by WorldFires by crossing the perimeter with those boundaries, so it may differ from each country’s official figure.