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Bolodou fire, 1 February 2017 Bolodou

Out · last detection 7 Feb 2017, 14:16 UTC

The fire started on 1 February 2017 in Bolodou, Guinea, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,773 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 27th largest in Nzérékoré since 2016 (of 241 with a page). Number 30 in Guinea in 2017, of 172.

Burnt area
4,773ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
7days
1 Feb 2017 – 7 Feb 2017
Municipalities hit
1
sub-prefectures
Started on
1 Feb
2017
Heat detections
161
in a single hotspot: 124 MW
Danger at start
37
High · FWI index
Energy released
2.1GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

7 Feb 2017
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 1 Feb7 Feb

How it evolved, day by day

1234567

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
33km/h · peak gust
10%lowest humidity

It had gone 11 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 4.2 mm on 17 Feb.

This area had burned before

39% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,859 ha in 2016.

What happened to each town

  1. Bolodou where it started
    4,803 ha reached on 1 Feb
    9.1 %

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)
1 Feb 35.4 °C 26 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
2 Feb 34.9 °C 23 % 26 km/h 0.2 mm High 34
3 Feb 36.4 °C 10 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
4 Feb 36.2 °C 12 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
5 Feb 36.7 °C 10 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
6 Feb 36.5 °C 11 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
7 Feb 37.0 °C 13 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
8 Feb after 36.0 °C 18 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
9 Feb after 36.4 °C 20 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
10 Feb after 34.7 °C 24 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
11 Feb after 35.7 °C 31 % 27 km/h 0.2 mm High 36
12 Feb after 36.7 °C 28 % 37 km/h 0.3 mm Very high 39
13 Feb after 34.5 °C 35 % 27 km/h 0.3 mm High 30
14 Feb after 35.6 °C 33 % 30 km/h 0.3 mm High 32
15 Feb after 37.2 °C 29 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
16 Feb after 34.5 °C 33 % 32 km/h 0.9 mm High 28
17 Feb after 34.8 °C 41 % 30 km/h 4.2 mm Low 8

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 25 Jan 2017
After · 14 Feb 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 · 161Every 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 Guinea ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Bolodou fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 1 February 2017 and 7 February 2017: 7 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 4,773 hectares (47.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Bolodou (4,803 ha, 9.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.0 °C, humidity dropped to 10 % and gusts hit 33 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 45, class Very high.
Where does this data come from?
From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Guinea (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 ADM3 (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.