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Aboudéia fire, 6 December 2019 Mangalmé, Aboudéia

Out · last detection 8 Dec 2019, 12:48 UTC

The fire started on 6 December 2019 in Aboudéia, Chad, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,380 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 154th largest in Salamat since 2016 (of 574 with a page). Number 49 in Chad in 2019, of 154.

Burnt area
3,380ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
3days
6 Dec 2019 – 8 Dec 2019
Municipalities hit
2
departments
Started on
6 Dec
2019
Heat detections
68
in a single hotspot: 43 MW
Danger at start
41
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
415MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

8 Dec 2019
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 6 Dec8 Dec

How it evolved, day by day

78

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

The weather it burned in

34°high
31km/h · peak gust
14%lowest humidity

It had gone 39 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

38% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,299 ha in 2016.

What happened to each town

  1. Mangalmé
    1,840 ha reached on 7 Dec
    0.2 %
  2. Aboudéia where it started
    1,558 ha reached on 7 Dec
    0.1 %

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)
6 Dec 33.9 °C 14 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
7 Dec 33.9 °C 15 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
8 Dec 34.3 °C 16 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
9 Dec after 34.4 °C 16 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
10 Dec after 34.2 °C 14 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
11 Dec after 34.8 °C 15 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
12 Dec after 34.6 °C 13 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
13 Dec after 34.0 °C 16 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
14 Dec after 34.2 °C 19 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
15 Dec after 35.7 °C 19 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
16 Dec after 34.3 °C 17 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
17 Dec after 34.6 °C 16 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
18 Dec after 34.2 °C 17 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 29 Nov 2019
After · 15 Dec 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 · 68Every 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 6 December 2019 and 8 December 2019: 3 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 3,380 hectares (33.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Mangalmé (1,840 ha, 0.2 %); Aboudéia (1,558 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 34.3 °C, humidity dropped to 14 % and gusts hit 31 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 45, class Very high.
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.