Skip to content
worldfires
en
TD · Chad · →

Biltine fire, December 2020 Biltine

Out · last measured on 14 Dec 2020

The fire started on 13 December 2020 in Biltine, Chad, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,431 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 10th largest in Wadi Fira since 2016 (of 27 with a page). Number 26 in Chad in 2020, of 175.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Biltine · 2022Biltine · 2025Biltine · 2018Biltine · 2020

We have the GWIS perimeter for this fire, but the VIIRS sensors did not capture it in enough detail: no day-by-day evolution, but the split by municipality is there.

Burnt area
4,431ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
2days
13 Dec 2020 – 14 Dec 2020
Municipalities hit
1
departments
Started on
13 Dec
2020
Danger at start
58
Extreme · FWI index

Where it burned

The weather it burned in

37°high
28km/h · peak gust
6%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

13% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 568 ha in 2016.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 2.8% of the area of London (44 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. Biltine where it started
    4,452 ha
    0.2 %

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)
13 Dec 37.3 °C 7 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
14 Dec 35.9 °C 6 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
15 Dec after 36.4 °C 7 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 65
16 Dec after 35.6 °C 8 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 73
17 Dec after 33.9 °C 8 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 68
18 Dec after 32.4 °C 8 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 64
19 Dec after 32.9 °C 8 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
20 Dec after 33.5 °C 9 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
21 Dec after 34.9 °C 8 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
22 Dec after 35.3 °C 7 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
23 Dec after 36.1 °C 9 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 65
24 Dec after 33.7 °C 12 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 66

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 6 Dec 2020
After · 21 Dec 2020

If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.

Other fires nearby

All fires in Chad ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Biltine fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 13 December 2020 and 14 December 2020: 2 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 4,431 hectares (44.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Biltine (4,452 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.3 °C, humidity dropped to 6 % and gusts hit 28 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 61, 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.

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.

Report an error
What do you think is wrong?

We will only use your email to reply about this report. Privacy.

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.

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.