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GN · Guinea · →

Douako fire, 3 March 2016 Douako

Out · last detection 7 Mar 2016, 14:36 UTC

The fire started on 3 March 2016 in Douako, Guinea, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,557 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 93th largest in Kankan since 2016 (of 388 with a page). Number 46 in Guinea in 2016, of 172.

Burnt area
3,557ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
5days
3 Mar 2016 – 7 Mar 2016
Municipalities hit
1
sub-prefectures
Started on
3 Mar
2016
Heat detections
121
in a single hotspot: 134 MW
Danger at start
53
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
2.6GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

7 Mar 2016
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 3 Mar7 Mar

How it evolved, day by day

3457

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

The weather it burned in

39°high
31km/h · peak gust
6%lowest humidity

It had gone 56 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. Douako where it started
    3,580 ha reached on 3 Mar
    1.2 %

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)
3 Mar 38.6 °C 8 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
4 Mar 38.9 °C 6 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
5 Mar 38.7 °C 10 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
6 Mar 39.3 °C 8 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
7 Mar 38.2 °C 10 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
8 Mar after 37.7 °C 16 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
9 Mar after 37.4 °C 20 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
10 Mar after 38.1 °C 24 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
11 Mar after 38.8 °C 17 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
12 Mar after 37.4 °C 21 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
13 Mar after 38.3 °C 20 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
14 Mar after 38.2 °C 18 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
15 Mar after 38.3 °C 14 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
16 Mar after 36.8 °C 28 % 28 km/h 0.9 mm High 37
17 Mar after 38.1 °C 27 % 31 km/h 0.2 mm Very high 39

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 25 Feb 2016
After · 14 Mar 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 · 121Every 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 Douako fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 3 March 2016 and 7 March 2016: 5 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 3,557 hectares (35.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Douako (3,580 ha, 1.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 39.3 °C, humidity dropped to 6 % and gusts hit 31 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 56, class Extreme.
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.