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Aboudéia fire, 4 January 2019 Aboudéia

Out · last detection 7 Jan 2019, 12:29 UTC

The fire started on 4 January 2019 in Aboudéia, Chad, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,654 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 131th largest in Salamat since 2016 (of 574 with a page). Number 43 in Chad in 2019, of 154.

Burnt area
3,654ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
4days
4 Jan 2019 – 7 Jan 2019
Municipalities hit
1
departments
Started on
4 Jan
2019
Heat detections
112
in a single hotspot: 45 MW
Danger at start
54
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
890MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

7 Jan 2019
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 4 Jan7 Jan

How it evolved, day by day

4567

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

The weather it burned in

38°high
34km/h · peak gust
15%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

28% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 894 ha in 2016, 129 ha in 2017.

What happened to each town

  1. Aboudéia where it started
    3,671 ha reached on 4 Jan
    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)
4 Jan 36.1 °C 18 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
5 Jan 38.0 °C 15 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
6 Jan 36.8 °C 16 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
7 Jan 35.3 °C 15 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
8 Jan after 35.1 °C 17 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
9 Jan after 34.6 °C 14 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
10 Jan after 35.3 °C 13 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
11 Jan after 36.9 °C 14 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
12 Jan after 38.2 °C 12 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
13 Jan after 39.2 °C 11 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
14 Jan after 36.7 °C 12 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
15 Jan after 34.4 °C 11 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
16 Jan after 34.5 °C 10 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
17 Jan after 35.8 °C 11 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 28 Dec 2018
After · 14 Jan 2019

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 · 112Every 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 4 January 2019 and 7 January 2019: 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 3,654 hectares (36.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Aboudéia (3,671 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 38.0 °C, humidity dropped to 15 % and gusts hit 34 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 58, 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.