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Douako fire, 26 January 2020 Douako

Out · last detection 30 Jan 2020, 14:35 UTC

The fire started on 26 January 2020 in Douako, Guinea, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,224 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 124th largest in Kankan since 2016 (of 388 with a page). Number 39 in Guinea in 2020, of 120.

Burnt area
3,224ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
5days
26 Jan 2020 – 30 Jan 2020
Municipalities hit
1
sub-prefectures
Started on
26 Jan
2020
Heat detections
110
in a single hotspot: 131 MW
Danger at start
36
High · FWI index
Energy released
2.4GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

30 Jan 2020
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 26 Jan30 Jan

How it evolved, day by day

2627282930

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
31km/h · peak gust
13%lowest humidity

It had gone 3 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

65% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 68 ha in 2016, 547 ha in 2017, 232 ha in 2018, 1,977 ha in 2019. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,098 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Douako where it started
    3,245 ha reached on 26 Jan
    1.1 %

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)
26 Jan 35.2 °C 15 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
27 Jan 34.8 °C 14 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
28 Jan 33.8 °C 17 % 17 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
29 Jan 34.6 °C 15 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
30 Jan 35.2 °C 13 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
31 Jan after 35.9 °C 13 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
1 Feb after 35.6 °C 15 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
2 Feb after 35.4 °C 17 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
3 Feb after 34.8 °C 14 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
4 Feb after 34.8 °C 13 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
5 Feb after 34.8 °C 15 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
6 Feb after 34.7 °C 14 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
7 Feb after 35.4 °C 15 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
8 Feb after 34.8 °C 13 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
9 Feb after 34.9 °C 14 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 19 Jan 2020
After · 6 Feb 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.

Detections table · 110Every 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 26 January 2020 and 30 January 2020: 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 3,224 hectares (32.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Douako (3,245 ha, 1.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 35.2 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 31 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 39, 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.