How long did the Ambositra fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 21 October 2017 and 28 October 2017: 8 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 2,001 hectares (20.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Ambositra (2,016 ha, 0.7 %).

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.

MG · Madagascar · 2017-10-21 → 2017-10-28

Ambositra fire, October 2017 Ambositra

Out · last detection 28 Oct 2017, 10:14 UTC

The fire started on 21 October 2017 in Ambositra, Madagascar, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,001 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 10th largest in Amoron'i Mania since 2016 (of 10 with a page). Number 57 in Madagascar in 2017, of 57.

Burnt area: 2,001ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 8days; 21 Oct 2017 – 28 Oct 2017
Municipalities hit: 1; districts
Started on: 21 Oct; 2017
Heat detections: 75; in a single hotspot: 157 MW
Average daily power: 155MW; detected power per day, on average

Play back 28 Oct 2017

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 21 Oct28 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

21 Oct 23 Oct 25 Oct 27 Oct

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

This area had burned before

10% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 207 ha in 2016.

What happened to each town

Ambositra where it started

2,016 ha reached on 21 Oct

0.7 %

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.

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 14 Oct 2017

After · 4 Nov 2017

Before After

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 · 75Every 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 time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Madagascar ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Ambositra fire last?: GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 21 October 2017 and 28 October 2017: 8 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 2,001 hectares (20.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Ambositra (2,016 ha, 0.7 %).
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

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

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.

Report an error

What do you think is wrong?

Dates or duration Place or towns Burned area Name It was not a wildfire Same fire as another page Something else

What really happened?

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How we know this

Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery.
Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 75 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
We have not matched this page with any official record.

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.

Where it burned