How long did the Ankazoabo fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 17 August 2025 and 31 August 2025: 15 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 3,076 hectares (30.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Ankazoabo (3,096 ha, 0.4 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 32.0 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 52 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 51, class Extreme.

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 · 2025-08-17 → 2025-08-31

Ankazoabo fire, August 2025 Ankazoabo

Out · last detection 1 Sept 2025, 09:57 UTC

The fire started on 17 August 2025 in Ankazoabo, Madagascar, and satellites saw it burning for 15 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,076 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 31th largest in Atsimo-Andrefana since 2016 (of 45 with a page). Number 43 in Madagascar in 2025, of 95.

Burnt area: 3,076ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 15days; 17 Aug 2025 – 31 Aug 2025
Municipalities hit: 1; districts
Started on: 17 Aug; 2025
Heat detections: 161; in a single hotspot: 111 MW
Danger at start: 34; High · FWI index
Energy released: 1.6GW; sum of detected power

Play back 1 Sept 2025

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 17 Aug31 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

1720222324252627282930311

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

The weather it burned in

32°high

52km/h · peak gust

13%lowest humidity

It had gone 2 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

What happened to each town

Ankazoabo where it started

3,096 ha reached on 17 Aug

0.4 %

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)
17 Aug	26.8 °C	34 %	52 km/h	0.4 mm	High 34
18 Aug	25.7 °C	30 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
19 Aug	26.6 °C	28 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
20 Aug	26.6 °C	22 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
21 Aug	27.4 °C	20 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
22 Aug	28.5 °C	17 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	High 38
23 Aug	30.2 °C	20 %	22 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
24 Aug	30.9 °C	16 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
25 Aug	31.1 °C	16 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
26 Aug	31.4 °C	13 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 51
27 Aug	31.8 °C	17 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 47
28 Aug	32.0 °C	19 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 46
29 Aug	30.9 °C	23 %	20 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
30 Aug	31.5 °C	23 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
31 Aug	31.2 °C	24 %	20 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
1 Sept after	32.4 °C	16 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
2 Sept after	31.6 °C	17 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 43
3 Sept after	30.5 °C	24 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
4 Sept after	29.5 °C	28 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	High 38
5 Sept after	29.8 °C	26 %	25 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 38
6 Sept after	31.4 °C	23 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 45
7 Sept after	31.9 °C	15 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 51
8 Sept after	31.5 °C	18 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
9 Sept after	31.7 °C	14 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 52
10 Sept after	30.7 °C	19 %	39 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 · 10 Aug 2025

After · 7 Sept 2025

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.

The smoke

CAMS · Copernicus

On 28 August 2025 the air beside the fire reached 84 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 38: 2.6 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak84 µg/m³

Days over the guideline3 days

PM1085 µg/m³

Optical depth0.93

WHO 15

1516171819202122232425262728293031123

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 · 161Every 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 Ankazoabo fire last?: GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 17 August 2025 and 31 August 2025: 15 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 3,076 hectares (30.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Ankazoabo (3,096 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 32.0 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 52 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 51, class Extreme.
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.

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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.

Where it burned