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Ankazobe fire, October 2016 Ankazobe

Out · last detection 7 Oct 2016, 10:52 UTC

The fire started on 5 October 2016 in Ankazobe, Madagascar, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,280 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the largest fire in Analamanga since 2016 (of 22 with a page). Number 20 in Madagascar in 2016, of 59.

Burnt area
3,280ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
3days
5 Oct 2016 – 7 Oct 2016
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
5 Oct
2016
Heat detections
88
in a single hotspot: 55 MW
Danger at start
30
High · FWI index
Energy released
1.1GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

7 Oct 2016
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 5 Oct7 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

567

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

The weather it burned in

27°high
55km/h · peak gust
18%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 28.1 mm on 15 Oct.

This area had burned before

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

What happened to each town

  1. Ankazobe where it started
    3,295 ha reached on 5 Oct
    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)
5 Oct 26.3 °C 34 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
6 Oct 25.4 °C 21 % 55 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
7 Oct 26.9 °C 18 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
8 Oct after 27.4 °C 31 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
9 Oct after 26.0 °C 28 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
10 Oct after 27.2 °C 31 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
11 Oct after 26.3 °C 36 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
12 Oct after 27.5 °C 22 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
13 Oct after 28.6 °C 24 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
14 Oct after 27.1 °C 37 % 24 km/h 0.3 mm High 29
15 Oct after 24.9 °C 56 % 31 km/h 28.1 mm Very low 1

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 28 Sept 2016
After · 14 Oct 2016

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 · 88Every 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 Ankazobe fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 5 October 2016 and 7 October 2016: 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 3,280 hectares (32.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Ankazobe (3,295 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 26.9 °C, humidity dropped to 18 % and gusts hit 55 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 40, class Very 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

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.