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TD · Chad · –

Bahr-Köh fire, December 2018 Mandoul Oriental, Bahr-Köh

Out · last detection 19 Dec 2018, 11:45 UTC

The fire started on 15 December 2018 in Bahr-Köh, Chad, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,361 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 120th largest in Moyen-Chari since 2016 (of 179 with a page). Number 45 in Chad in 2018, of 78.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Mandoul Oriental · 2018Lac Iro · 2017Mandoul Oriental · 2020Mandoul Oriental · 2026

Burnt area
2,361ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
5days
15 Dec 2018 – 19 Dec 2018
Municipalities hit
2
departments
Started on
15 Dec
2018
Heat detections
55
in a single hotspot: 35 MW
Danger at start
46
Very high · FWI index
Average daily power
127MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 15 Dec19 Dec
19 Dec 2018

How it evolved, day by day

15 Dec 2018 · 197 MW · 13 16 Dec 2018 · 146 MW · 15 17 Dec 2018 · 230 MW · 16 18 Dec 2018 · 55 MW · 8 19 Dec 2018 · 7 MW · 3
15 Dec 16 Dec 17 Dec 18 Dec 19 Dec

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

The weather it burned in

37°high
38km/h · peak gust
14%lowest humidity

It had gone 48 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.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 1.5% of the area of London (24 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. Mandoul Oriental
    1,213 ha reached on 16 Dec
    0.2 %
  2. Bahr-Köh where it started
    1,163 ha reached on 15 Dec
    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 area< 0.1 ha
Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (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)

Started with Very dry air: 54 % of the area in Chad

Day High Min. humidity Peak gust Rain Danger (FWI)
15 Dec 35.3 °C 14 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
16 Dec 37.4 °C 16 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
17 Dec 36.3 °C 16 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
18 Dec 34.4 °C 16 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
19 Dec 33.8 °C 18 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
20 Dec after 34.0 °C 18 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
21 Dec after 33.3 °C 17 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
22 Dec after 33.9 °C 18 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
23 Dec after 33.6 °C 18 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
24 Dec after 33.0 °C 18 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
25 Dec after 33.2 °C 19 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
26 Dec after 33.5 °C 22 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
27 Dec after 33.1 °C 24 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
28 Dec after 33.7 °C 24 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
29 Dec after 33.9 °C 22 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 45.9, a minimum humidity of 14% and 48 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 100.

FWI at the start 45.9
Minimum humidity 14 %
Days without rain 48
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Mandoul Oriental fire, January 2018
3,090 ha 23 days FWI 46.9 Min. humidity 13 % 41 km away, in 2018

First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.

See its page Compare with this fire

What happened to them

9 days
median duration
2,933 ha
median area
100 %
went past 1,000 ha
—
rain at the end (median; 0 of 100 had it)

It burned an area similar to its twins (2,361 ha against a median of 2,933 ha) and lasted 5 days, against 9 days.

In none of them did 1 mm fall in the ten days after the end: they all went out without rain.

This is a bank of analogues: it shows what usually happens, not what will happen. With fewer than 15 twins we give no figures. How we calculate it

How it ended

—first rain
—no rain in ten days
38km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 19 Dec, and not even 1 mm fell in the following ten days: it went out without rain. None of its 100 twins had rain when they ended.

Weather on this page: Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)

How a twin is chosen

  • Same area: fires that have already ended, less than 250 km from this one, since 2016.
  • Same start: we compare the FWI on the first day, the minimum humidity that day and the run of days without rain before it. The slider sets how much they may differ.
  • Only pages with final weather data (ERA5 reanalysis) calculated in the same way as this fire’s; agricultural and grass burns and pages with data under review are left out.
  • Fires burning at the same time as this one (a week before or after) are left out: they share the same spell of weather and do not count as a precedent.
  • They are sorted by similarity, and the outlines of the first five are drawn.

How we calculate it

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 8 Dec 2018
After · 26 Dec 2018

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 · 55Every 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 Bahr-Köh fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 15 December 2018 and 19 December 2018: 5 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 2,361 hectares (23.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Mandoul Oriental (1,213 ha, 0.2 %); Bahr-Köh (1,163 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.4 °C, humidity dropped to 14 % and gusts hit 38 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 53, class Extreme.
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.
How did the fires that started in similar weather in this area end?
Fires less than 250 km away that started since 2016 with a similar FWI, humidity and dry spell: 100. Their median duration was 9 days and their median area 2,933 ha; 100 % went past 1,000 ha. In none of them did 1 mm fall in the ten days after the end: they all went out without rain.

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 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.

No changes since 24 October 2026.

RSS Changes to this page With cross-checks and a citable version

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
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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. 55 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.