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Douako fire, 21 January 2018 Douako

Out · last detection 23 Jan 2018, 14:54 UTC

The fire started on 21 January 2018 in Douako, Guinea, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,596 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 54th largest in Kankan since 2016 (of 388 with a page). Number 18 in Guinea in 2018, of 107.

Burnt area
4,596ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
3days
21 Jan 2018 – 23 Jan 2018
Municipalities hit
1
sub-prefectures
Started on
21 Jan
2018
Heat detections
122
in a single hotspot: 41 MW
Danger at start
44
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
887MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

23 Jan 2018
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 21 Jan23 Jan

How it evolved, day by day

212223

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

The weather it burned in

35°high
38km/h · peak gust
13%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

30% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 174 ha in 2016, 1,334 ha in 2017. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,391 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Douako where it started
    4,624 ha reached on 21 Jan
    1.6 %

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)
21 Jan 34.4 °C 13 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
22 Jan 34.8 °C 13 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
23 Jan 34.7 °C 14 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
24 Jan after 34.4 °C 19 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
25 Jan after 34.5 °C 12 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
26 Jan after 34.3 °C 14 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
27 Jan after 34.2 °C 15 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
28 Jan after 34.4 °C 19 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
29 Jan after 31.0 °C 30 % 31 km/h 0.9 mm High 27
30 Jan after 36.0 °C 17 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
31 Jan after 35.6 °C 23 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
1 Feb after 35.6 °C 27 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
2 Feb after 32.3 °C 36 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 35

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 14 Jan 2018
After · 30 Jan 2018

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 · 122Every 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 21 January 2018 and 23 January 2018: 3 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 4,596 hectares (46.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Douako (4,624 ha, 1.6 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 34.8 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 38 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 46, 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.