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Beaufort fire, 16 March 2016 Beaufort, Kuala Penyu

Out · last detection 9 Apr 2016, 05:49 UTC

The fire started on 16 March 2016 in Beaufort, Malaysia, and satellites saw it burning for 24 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 8,047 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the largest fire in Sabah since 2016 (of 106 with a page). The largest in Malaysia in 2016, of 104.

Burnt area
8,047ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
24days
16 Mar 2016 – 8 Apr 2016
Municipalities hit
2
districts
Started on
16 Mar
2016
Heat detections
572
in a single hotspot: 44 MW
Danger at start
3
Very low · FWI index
Energy released
4.9GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

9 Apr 2016
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 16 Mar8 Apr

How it evolved, day by day

161718192021222324262728293031123456789

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
46km/h · peak gust
47%lowest humidity

It had gone 3 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 9.1 mm on 9 Apr.

This area had burned before

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

What happened to each town

  1. Beaufort where it started
    7,509 ha reached on 15 Mar
    4.1 %
  2. Kuala Penyu
    593 ha reached on 23 Mar
    1.5 %

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)
15 Mar 31.8 °C 63 % 36 km/h 1.3 mm Very low 3
16 Mar 31.3 °C 69 % 31 km/h 4.4 mm Very low 0
17 Mar 31.3 °C 68 % 31 km/h 0.3 mm Very low 1
18 Mar 34.5 °C 51 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Low 7
19 Mar 33.4 °C 59 % 35 km/h 0.1 mm Low 7
20 Mar 33.0 °C 62 % 29 km/h 0.6 mm Low 6
21 Mar 33.7 °C 58 % 31 km/h 0.7 mm Low 7
22 Mar 33.8 °C 55 % 31 km/h 0.1 mm Low 8
23 Mar 34.2 °C 55 % 32 km/h 2.4 mm Very low 3
24 Mar 32.4 °C 68 % 24 km/h 3.2 mm Very low 1
25 Mar 30.3 °C 72 % 19 km/h 2.2 mm Very low 1
26 Mar 32.6 °C 57 % 29 km/h 0.4 mm Very low 4
27 Mar 31.7 °C 60 % 41 km/h 0.6 mm Low 7
28 Mar 31.6 °C 62 % 46 km/h 1.0 mm Low 7
29 Mar 32.5 °C 60 % 42 km/h 0.3 mm Low 9
30 Mar 33.1 °C 57 % 32 km/h 1.1 mm Low 6
31 Mar 33.6 °C 60 % 31 km/h 1.0 mm Low 6
1 Apr 32.9 °C 61 % 34 km/h 1.2 mm Low 6
2 Apr 35.2 °C 47 % 32 km/h 0.2 mm Moderate 12
3 Apr 33.3 °C 58 % 35 km/h 0.2 mm Moderate 12
4 Apr 33.7 °C 59 % 29 km/h 2.5 mm Very low 3
5 Apr 34.1 °C 58 % 29 km/h 1.5 mm Very low 4
6 Apr 34.8 °C 54 % 31 km/h 1.5 mm Low 7
7 Apr 35.4 °C 52 % 31 km/h 0.7 mm Moderate 11
8 Apr 35.5 °C 51 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 14
9 Apr after 33.8 °C 64 % 27 km/h 9.1 mm Very low 1

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 9 Mar 2016
After · 15 Apr 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 · 572Every 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 Malaysia ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Beaufort fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 16 March 2016 and 8 April 2016: 24 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 8,047 hectares (80.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Beaufort (7,509 ha, 4.1 %); Kuala Penyu (593 ha, 1.5 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 35.5 °C, humidity dropped to 47 % and gusts hit 46 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 14, class Moderate.
Where does this data come from?
From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Malaysia (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.

Emergency number: 999

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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We will only use your email to reply about this report. Privacy. This is not an emergency service: if there is a fire now, call 999.

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 License). 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.