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Ambanja fire, 17 September 2022 Ambanja, Ambilobe

Out · last detection 21 Oct 2022, 10:10 UTC

The fire started on 17 September 2022 in Ambanja, Madagascar, and satellites saw it burning for 35 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 14,609 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the largest fire in Diana since 2016 (of 25 with a page). Number 2 in Madagascar in 2022, of 34.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Ambanja · 2018Ambanja · 2020Ambilobe · 2018Ambanja · 2024

Burnt area
14,609ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
35days
17 Sept 2022 – 21 Oct 2022
Municipalities hit
2
districts
Started on
17 Sept
2022
Heat detections
1,173
in a single hotspot: 249 MW
Danger at start
20
Moderate · FWI index
Average daily power
402MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 17 Sept21 Oct
21 Oct 2022

How it evolved, day by day

17 Sept 2022 · 18 MW · 10 18 Sept 2022 · 10 MW · 5 19 Sept 2022 · 2 MW · 2 20 Sept 2022 · 9 MW · 1 21 Sept 2022 · 78 MW · 3 22 Sept 2022 · 3 MW · 4 23 Sept 2022 · 53 MW · 10 24 Sept 2022 · 7 MW · 5 25 Sept 2022 · 14 MW · 5 26 Sept 2022 · 590 MW · 37 27 Sept 2022 · 19 MW · 16 28 Sept 2022 · 8 MW · 9 29 Sept 2022 · 456 MW · 50 30 Sept 2022 · 11 MW · 1 1 Oct 2022 · 1,446 MW · 70 2 Oct 2022 · 854 MW · 77 3 Oct 2022 · 1,030 MW · 116 4 Oct 2022 · 472 MW · 58 5 Oct 2022 · 951 MW · 67 6 Oct 2022 · 149 MW · 21 7 Oct 2022 · 2,176 MW · 133 8 Oct 2022 · 1,584 MW · 144 9 Oct 2022 · 1,260 MW · 99 10 Oct 2022 · 44 MW · 25 11 Oct 2022 · 322 MW · 28 12 Oct 2022 · 924 MW · 44 13 Oct 2022 · 260 MW · 82 14 Oct 2022 · 77 MW · 11 16 Oct 2022 · 35 MW · 2 17 Oct 2022 · 143 MW · 4 19 Oct 2022 · 20 MW · 4 20 Oct 2022 · 183 MW · 23 21 Oct 2022 · 63 MW · 7
17 Sept 22 Sept 27 Sept 2 Oct 7 Oct 12 Oct 19 Oct

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

The weather it burned in

30°high
52km/h · peak gust
18%lowest humidity

It had gone 3 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.0 mm on 23 Oct.

This area had burned before

36% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 979 ha in 2016, 122 ha in 2017, 3,116 ha in 2018, 13 ha in 2019, 1,829 ha in 2020. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 5,188 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 9.2% of the area of London (146 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each town

  1. Ambanja where it started
    13,642 ha reached on 21 Sept
    2.3 %
  2. Ambilobe
    1,063 ha reached on 17 Sept
    0.1 %

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

People and buildings inside the perimeter

GHSL 2020
Built-up area0.13 ha
Residents≈ 900

Inside the perimeter there were about 0.13 hectares of built-up land and about 900 residents (GHSL 2020, satellite-based estimate).

This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned.

Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu

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)
17 Sept 26.0 °C 27 % 36 km/h 0.3 mm Moderate 20
18 Sept 28.0 °C 27 % 33 km/h 1.0 mm Moderate 16
19 Sept 26.5 °C 30 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
20 Sept 26.8 °C 33 % 35 km/h 4.6 mm Very low 4
21 Sept 25.3 °C 33 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 12
22 Sept 24.2 °C 55 % 52 km/h 4.2 mm Very low 2
23 Sept 26.1 °C 45 % 51 km/h 1.3 mm Low 6
24 Sept 21.5 °C 58 % 46 km/h 3.0 mm Very low 2
25 Sept 26.7 °C 35 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Low 7
26 Sept 27.2 °C 41 % 45 km/h 0.1 mm Moderate 12
27 Sept 26.4 °C 35 % 47 km/h 0.8 mm Moderate 13
28 Sept 26.9 °C 30 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 15
29 Sept 25.9 °C 35 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
30 Sept 28.2 °C 29 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
1 Oct 27.5 °C 27 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 18
2 Oct 28.4 °C 24 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
3 Oct 29.6 °C 21 % 38 km/h 0.2 mm High 22
4 Oct 29.2 °C 25 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
5 Oct 29.9 °C 20 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
6 Oct 27.4 °C 32 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
7 Oct 28.8 °C 21 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
8 Oct 26.7 °C 32 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
9 Oct 26.5 °C 34 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
10 Oct 27.1 °C 34 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
11 Oct 28.5 °C 18 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
12 Oct 28.3 °C 24 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
13 Oct 28.2 °C 26 % 36 km/h 0.1 mm High 28
14 Oct 26.6 °C 27 % 32 km/h 0.7 mm High 22
15 Oct 26.2 °C 32 % 35 km/h 5.1 mm Very low 4
16 Oct 26.1 °C 39 % 41 km/h 5.0 mm Very low 2
17 Oct 28.2 °C 34 % 40 km/h 1.4 mm Very low 5
18 Oct 28.7 °C 34 % 35 km/h 1.1 mm Low 9
19 Oct 26.8 °C 38 % 32 km/h 0.1 mm Moderate 14
20 Oct 28.4 °C 26 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
21 Oct 29.1 °C 31 % 35 km/h 0.2 mm Moderate 20
22 Oct after 29.7 °C 21 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
23 Oct after 30.4 °C 28 % 36 km/h 1.0 mm Moderate 18

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 10 Sept 2022
After · 28 Oct 2022

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

The smoke

CAMS · Copernicus

On 22 September 2022 the air beside the fire reached 132 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 48: 3.2 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak132 µg/m³
Days over the guideline18 days
PM10188 µg/m³
Optical depth0.66
2223242526272829301234567891011121314151617
Good Fair Moderate Poor Very poor Extremely poor

Particles from the Copernicus CAMS model at the centre of the perimeter; these are not measurements in each town. The pale bar is the worst hour, the solid one the daily average.

Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS)

Detections table · 1,173Every 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 Madagascar ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Ambanja fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 17 September 2022 to 21 October 2022 (35 days). The perimeter dates it from 24 September 2022 to 14 October 2022.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 14,609 hectares (146.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Ambanja (13,642 ha, 2.3 %); Ambilobe (1,063 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 29.9 °C, humidity dropped to 18 % and gusts hit 52 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 28, class High.
Where does this data come from?
From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Madagascar (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

History of this page · 2 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
  1. Last day with fire: 14 October 2022 → 21 October 2022.
  2. Start date: 24 September 2022 → 17 September 2022.

RSS Changes to this page

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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How we know this
  • Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery; 3 polygons grouped in this page.
  • Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 24 September 2022 to 14 October 2022. 1,173 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
  • We have not matched this page with any official record.
  • Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
  • Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2020, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.

How we build fire pages: methodology ›

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.