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Douako fire, 2 February 2017 Douako

Out · last detection 7 Feb 2017, 01:30 UTC

The fire started on 2 February 2017 in Douako, Guinea, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,823 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 166th largest in Kankan since 2016 (of 388 with a page). Number 85 in Guinea in 2017, of 172.

The power measured by the satellite is low (26.1 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Burnt area
2,823ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
6days
2 Feb 2017 – 7 Feb 2017
Municipalities hit
1
sub-prefectures
Started on
2 Feb
2017
Heat detections
92
in a single hotspot: 26 MW
Danger at start
46
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
597MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

7 Feb 2017
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 2 Feb7 Feb

How it evolved, day by day

234567

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
39km/h · peak gust
9%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

3% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 93 ha in 2016.

What happened to each town

  1. Douako where it started
    2,841 ha reached on 2 Feb
    1.0 %

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)
2 Feb 34.3 °C 13 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
3 Feb 34.3 °C 12 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
4 Feb 35.1 °C 10 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
5 Feb 34.7 °C 9 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
6 Feb 35.0 °C 11 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
7 Feb 35.7 °C 10 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
8 Feb after 35.6 °C 9 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
9 Feb after 36.3 °C 8 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
10 Feb after 35.3 °C 16 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
11 Feb after 36.6 °C 21 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
12 Feb after 36.8 °C 23 % 35 km/h 0.2 mm Very high 47
13 Feb after 34.8 °C 31 % 33 km/h 0.1 mm Very high 38
14 Feb after 36.6 °C 23 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
15 Feb after 37.7 °C 19 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
16 Feb after 36.1 °C 24 % 30 km/h 0.2 mm Very high 44
17 Feb after 37.4 °C 23 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 26 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 · 92Every 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 2 February 2017 and 7 February 2017: 6 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 2,823 hectares (28.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Douako (2,841 ha, 1.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 35.7 °C, humidity dropped to 9 % and gusts hit 39 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 52, 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.