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Bassar fire, 16 December 2016 Bassar

Out · last detection 31 Dec 2016, 12:48 UTC

The fire started on 16 December 2016 in Bassar, Togo, and satellites saw it burning for 16 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,703 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the largest fire in Kara since 2016 (of 107 with a page). The largest in Togo in 2016, of 46.

Burnt area
6,703ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
16days
16 Dec 2016 – 31 Dec 2016
Municipalities hit
1
prefectures
Started on
16 Dec
2016
Heat detections
222
in a single hotspot: 117 MW
Danger at start
9
Low · FWI index
Energy released
2.1GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

31 Dec 2016
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 16 Dec31 Dec

How it evolved, day by day

16171819202122232425262728293031

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

The weather it burned in

36°high
34km/h · peak gust
12%lowest humidity

It had gone 22 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

  1. Bassar where it started
    6,742 ha reached on 16 Dec
    2.0 %

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)
16 Dec 33.7 °C 46 % 21 km/h 2.5 mm Low 9
17 Dec 34.8 °C 36 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
18 Dec 34.0 °C 45 % 26 km/h 2.3 mm Low 9
19 Dec 35.5 °C 33 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
20 Dec 35.5 °C 31 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
21 Dec 36.3 °C 19 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
22 Dec 35.7 °C 24 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
23 Dec 35.1 °C 14 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
24 Dec 35.7 °C 12 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
25 Dec 34.2 °C 21 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
26 Dec 32.6 °C 13 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
27 Dec 31.9 °C 17 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
28 Dec 31.8 °C 17 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
29 Dec 32.8 °C 17 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
30 Dec 33.9 °C 16 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
31 Dec 34.0 °C 18 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
1 Jan after 33.8 °C 17 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
2 Jan after 33.1 °C 20 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
3 Jan after 33.7 °C 19 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
4 Jan after 33.5 °C 18 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
5 Jan after 34.9 °C 19 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
6 Jan after 34.4 °C 18 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
7 Jan after 35.5 °C 18 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
8 Jan after 33.4 °C 33 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
9 Jan after 35.4 °C 12 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
10 Jan after 34.7 °C 13 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 9 Dec 2016
After · 7 Jan 2017

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 · 222Every 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 Togo ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Bassar fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 16 December 2016 to 31 December 2016 (16 days). The perimeter dates it from 17 December 2016 to 31 December 2016.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 6,703 hectares (67.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Bassar (6,742 ha, 2.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.3 °C, humidity dropped to 12 % and gusts hit 34 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 Togo (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-ShareAlike 2.0). 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.