Burned area
satellite only4,205ha
Perimeter published by GWIS (Copernicus).
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus)
- Date
- 3 Oct 2022 – 12 Oct 2022
+− cross-check
No official record is matched to this page to compare it with.
MG · Madagascar · –
Betafo fire, October 2022 Betafo
Out · last detection 12 Oct 2022, 22:29 UTC
The fire started on 3 October 2022 in Betafo, Madagascar, and satellites saw it burning for 10 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,205 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
Number 12 in Madagascar in 2022, of 34.
Use this data
Compare with…
Suggestions: Mahabo · 2018Belo Sur Tsiribihina · 2017
Use this data
Fire page data · version 2026-10-24matches the official recordwith caveatssatellite onlymodel
When copying, the sentence is
Tick the figures you want: they make up the lede and the CSV.
Duration by satellite
satellite only10days
3 Oct 2022 to 12 Oct 2022: first and last day with fire on the page.
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
- Date
- last detection: 12 Oct 2022, 22:29 UTC
+− cross-check
Satellites pass a few times a day and cloud or smoke can hide the fire: a lack of detections is not an official extinction. Each country’s emergency service declares a fire contained or out.
Start
satellite only3 Oct 2022
First day with fire seen by the satellites or the perimeter.
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
- Date
- 3 Oct 2022
+− cross-check
No official record is matched to this page, so the alert time and the cause are not known here.
The worst day
satellite only172MW
Total radiative power on 7 October 2022; hotspots that day: 12.
- Source
- NASA FIRMS · VIIRS (FRP)
- Date
- 7 Oct 2022
+− cross-check
Fire radiative power (FRP) measures the energy the fire gives off when the satellite passes. Added up by day, it compares intensity, not area.
Danger at the start
model31.2FWI · high
Fire Weather Index (Canadian system) computed by WorldFires for the day the fire started. Consecutive days without rain before: 60.
- Source
- WorldFires calculation (Canadian FWI system)
- Date
- 3 Oct 2022, local noon
- Model
- ERA5 0,25° (ECMWF · Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com
+− cross-check
This is an index computed from weather model data, not a measurement of the fire nor an official warning. Danger warnings are issued by each country’s authority. Emergency number and official warnings
Weather during the fire
model30.1°C · 15% RH
High of 30.1 °C and minimum humidity of 15% on 5 October 2022; gusts of 52 km/h on 7 October 2022.
- Source
- weather model at the fire’s grid cell
- Date
- 3 Oct 2022 – 12 Oct 2022
- Model
- ERA5 0,25° (ECMWF · Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com
+− cross-check
These are model values for a cell of about 25 km, not from a weather station: they may differ from what was measured on the ground.
Living inside
model≈ 70people
Estimated residents inside the perimeter and 0.33 ha of built-up area (100 m grid, epoch 2020).
- Source
- GHSL R2023A · JRC
- Date
- calculated on 24 October 2026
+− cross-check
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.
This page’s change log has been kept since 24 October 2026: every night what it publishes is compared and the difference is logged. Anything earlier is reconstructed from each source’s date and marked as reconstructed.
Show
-
· reconstructed weatherWeather and FWI computed from the ERA5 reanalysis
-
· reconstructed GHSLPopulation and built-up area computed
What was saved on 24 October 2026
Every night a snapshot of what the page shows is saved. If anything changes, it appears in the list as a log entry.
- Area
- 4,205 ha
- Dates
- 3 Oct 2022 – 12 Oct 2022
- Name
- Betafo
- Official record
- —
Versioned permanent link
https://worldfires.org/en/fire/betafo-2022-10?v=2026-10-24A version keeps the area, dates, name and official record; the area as it was logged (changes under 2% are not logged). The map, hotspots and weather always show today’s data.
Citation
A lede of about 60 words figures only, no adjectives
CSV for this fire betafo-2022-10.csv · daily, no individual hotspots
| fecha | focos_viirs | frp_mw | tmax_c | tmin_c | hr_min_pct | viento_max_kmh | racha_max_kmh | precip_mm | fwi | clase_fwi | dentro_del_incendio |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2022-10-03 | 2 | 19 | 28.9 | 10.2 | 22 | 8.5 | 25.6 | 0 | 31.2 | alto | 1 |
| 2022-10-04 | 0 | 0 | 29.7 | 10.5 | 18 | 14.5 | 37.1 | 0 | 37.4 | alto | 1 |
| 2022-10-05 | 1 | 2 | 30.1 | 7.4 | 15 | 15.8 | 40 | 0 | 41.3 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2022-10-06 | 8 | 82 | 30 | 6.8 | 12 | 16.9 | 43.2 | 0 | 45.3 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2022-10-07 | 12 | 172 | 28.4 | 9.5 | 18 | 19.3 | 51.5 | 0 | 48 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2022-10-08 | 23 | 74 | 26.9 | 7.6 | 18 | 17.2 | 46.8 | 0 | 45.2 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2022-10-09 | 28 | 138 | 27.1 | 7.8 | 20 | 15.7 | 42.5 | 0 | 42.6 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2022-10-10 | 13 | 91 | 29.3 | 6.3 | 14 | 17 | 43.9 | 0 | 44.5 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2022-10-11 | 15 | 67 | 27.8 | 5.5 | 9 | 16 | 42.5 | 0 | 46.9 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2022-10-12 | 18 | 160 | 27.3 | 7.2 | 21 | 15.6 | 40 | 0 | 43.2 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2022-10-13 | 0 | 0 | 26.1 | 7.5 | 27 | 17.8 | 43.9 | 0 | 40.8 | muy_alto | 0 |
| 2022-10-14 | 0 | 0 | 25.2 | 9.5 | 29 | 15.8 | 42.5 | 0 | 36.6 | alto | 0 |
| 2022-10-15 | 0 | 0 | 25 | 9.2 | 25 | 9.1 | 24.1 | 0 | 31.3 | alto | 0 |
| 2022-10-16 | 0 | 0 | 26.4 | 9.4 | 26 | 8.7 | 28.8 | 0 | 31.3 | alto | 0 |
| 2022-10-17 | 0 | 0 | 26.7 | 10.3 | 25 | 14.8 | 36.7 | 0 | 36.6 | alto | 0 |
| 2022-10-18 | 0 | 0 | 26.9 | 9.7 | 22 | 16.9 | 41.8 | 0 | 38.8 | muy_alto | 0 |
| 2022-10-19 | 0 | 0 | 26.6 | 9.1 | 26 | 15.9 | 40 | 0 | 38.1 | muy_alto | 0 |
| 2022-10-20 | 0 | 0 | 25 | 11.9 | 35 | 8.9 | 31.7 | 0 | 28.8 | alto | 0 |
| 2022-10-21 | 0 | 0 | 25.2 | 13.3 | 36 | 8.6 | 29.5 | 0.1 | 27.5 | alto | 0 |
| 2022-10-22 | 0 | 0 | 24.5 | 12.2 | 37 | 9.8 | 28.4 | 5.1 | 4.5 | muy_bajo | 0 |
It is generated in your browser from this page’s data: one file per fire, aggregated by day and without individual hotspots.
Live widget for your story
It updates itself while the fire is still active and links to this page. Free, with the attribution shown at the bottom.
Sources for this page: GWIS (Copernicus), NASA FIRMS (VIIRS), ERA5 (ECMWF/Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0), GHSL (JRC). Open-Meteo.com · How we build fire pages: methodology
- Burnt area
- 4,205ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 10days
- 3 Oct 2022 – 12 Oct 2022
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- districts
- Started on
- 3 Oct
- 2022
- Heat detections
- 120
- in a single hotspot: 0 MW
- Danger at start
- 31
- High · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 90MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
HOTSPOTS BY DAY
3 Oct12 Oct
12 Oct 2022
How it evolved, day by day
3 Oct
7 Oct
10 Oct
12 Oct
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
30°high
52km/h · peak gust
9%lowest humidity
It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 5.1 mm on 22 Oct.
This area had burned before
No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.
How big is it?
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Paris boundary: geoBoundaries · Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière (IGN-F) (Etalab Open License 2.0).
Madrid boundary: geoBoundaries · Open Data ESRI, IGN Central Registry of Cartography Area (CC BY 4.0).
Berlin boundary: geoBoundaries · Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy (dl-de/by-2-0).
This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.
What happened to each town
-
Betafo where it started4,233 ha1.0 %
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 2020Built-up area0.33 ha
Residents≈ 70
Inside the perimeter there were about 0.33 hectares of built-up land and about 70 residents (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 60 days without rain: 16 % of the area in Madagascar
| Day | High | Min. humidity | Peak gust | Rain | Danger (FWI) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3 Oct | 28.9 °C | 22 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 4 Oct | 29.7 °C | 18 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 5 Oct | 30.1 °C | 15 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 6 Oct | 30.0 °C | 12 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 7 Oct | 28.4 °C | 18 % | 52 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 8 Oct | 26.9 °C | 18 % | 47 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 9 Oct | 27.1 °C | 20 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 10 Oct | 29.3 °C | 14 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 11 Oct | 27.8 °C | 9 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 12 Oct | 27.3 °C | 21 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 13 Oct after | 26.1 °C | 27 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 14 Oct after | 25.2 °C | 29 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 15 Oct after | 25.0 °C | 25 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 16 Oct after | 26.4 °C | 26 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 17 Oct after | 26.7 °C | 25 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 18 Oct after | 26.9 °C | 22 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 19 Oct after | 26.6 °C | 26 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 20 Oct after | 25.0 °C | 35 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 21 Oct after | 25.2 °C | 36 % | 30 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 28 |
| 22 Oct after | 24.5 °C | 37 % | 28 km/h | 5.1 mm | Very low 4 |
Its twins: fires that started in the same weather
It started with an FWI of 31.2, a minimum humidity of 22% and more than two months without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 16.
FWI at the start
31.2
Minimum humidity
22 %
Days without rain
60+
this fire
chosen twins
rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar
Outlines of the closest twins
This fire · Betafo fire, October 2022
4,205 ha
10 days
FWI 31.2
Min. humidity 22 %
Mahabo fire, August 2018
2,556 ha
6 days
FWI 31.9
Min. humidity 26 %
154 km away, in 2018
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
Belo Sur Tsiribihina fire, October 2017
6,286 ha
20 days
FWI 29.8
Min. humidity 26 %
224 km away, in 2017
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 1.1 mm on 27 Oct.
Belo Sur Tsiribihina fire, August 2024
2,179 ha
19 days
FWI 38.0
Min. humidity 22 %
211 km away, in 2024
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 1.3 mm on 1 Sept.
Mahabo fire, June 2021
2,489 ha
29 days
FWI 32.1
Min. humidity 25 %
215 km away, in 2021
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
Morondava fire, June 2021
2,395 ha
25 days
FWI 36.2
Min. humidity 23 %
219 km away, in 2021
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
What happened to them
- 20 days
- median duration
- 2,522 ha
- median area
- 100 %
- went past 1,000 ha
- 1.3 mm
- rain at the end (median; 8 of 16 had it)
It was 1.7 times larger than the median of its twins and lasted 10 days, against 20 days.
Only 3 of its 16 twins burned more. The weather on the first day does not explain everything: the wind in the following days, the fuel and the firefighting also count. In 8 of 16, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 1.3 mm.
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
5.1 mmfirst rain
22 Oct10 days after it ended
52km/h · max. gust
It was considered over on 12 Oct, and on 22 Oct 5.1 mm fell. We do not know whether the rain or the firefighters put it out. Twins with rain when they ended: 8 of 16, with a median of 1.3 mm.
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.
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
↔
Before · 26 Sept 2022
After · 19 Oct 2022
Sentinel-2 did not pass over on that day. Try another date, or use false colour, which is daily.
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 · CopernicusOn 13 October 2022 the air beside the fire reached 65 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 30: 2.0 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
PM2.5 peak65 µg/m³
Days over the guideline7 days
PM1093 µg/m³
Optical depth1.12
WHO 15
1 Oct4 Oct7 Oct10 Oct13 Oct
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 · 0Every 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 |
|---|
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Betafo fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 3 October 2022 and 12 October 2022: 10 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 4,205 hectares (42.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Betafo (4,233 ha, 1.0 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 30.1 °C, humidity dropped to 9 % and gusts hit 52 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 48, 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.
- 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: 16. Their median duration was 20 days and their median area 2,522 ha; 100 % went past 1,000 ha. Only 3 of its 16 twins burned more. The weather on the first day does not explain everything: the wind in the following days, the fuel and the firefighting also count. In 8 of 16, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 1.3 mm.
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
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. No 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.
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.