How long did the Fitri fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 7 November 2016 and 11 November 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 4,291 hectares (42.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Fitri (4,314 ha, 0.4 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 39.4 °C, humidity dropped to 7 % and gusts hit 38 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 61, class Extreme.

Where does this data come from?

From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Chad (geoBoundaries). It is not an official report.

TD · Chad · 2016-11-07 → 2016-11-11

Fitri fire, 7 November 2016 Fitri

Out · last detection 12 Nov 2016, 11:27 UTC

The fire started on 7 November 2016 in Fitri, Chad, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,291 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 39th largest in Batha since 2016 (of 135 with a page). Number 40 in Chad in 2016, of 220.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Fitri · 2016 Fitri · 2025 Fitri · 2017 Fitri · 2023

Burnt area: 4,291ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 5days; 7 Nov 2016 – 11 Nov 2016
Municipalities hit: 1; departments
Started on: 7 Nov; 2016
Heat detections: 130; in a single hotspot: 47 MW
Danger at start: 54; Extreme · FWI index
Average daily power: 171MW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 7 Nov11 Nov

Play back 12 Nov 2016

How it evolved, day by day

7 Nov 8 Nov 9 Nov 10 Nov 11 Nov 12 Nov

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

38km/h · peak gust

7%lowest humidity

It had gone 19 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.

How big is it?

It burned the equivalent of 2.7% of the area of London (43 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each town

Fitri where it started

4,314 ha reached on 7 Nov

0.4 %

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	Danger (FWI)
7 Nov	38.7 °C	12 %	29 km/h	Extreme 54
8 Nov	39.4 °C	7 %	33 km/h	Extreme 55
9 Nov	39.4 °C	12 %	31 km/h	Extreme 60
10 Nov	39.3 °C	9 %	34 km/h	Extreme 59
11 Nov	39.1 °C	9 %	38 km/h	Extreme 61
12 Nov after	39.0 °C	11 %	32 km/h	Extreme 58
13 Nov after	38.7 °C	13 %	36 km/h	Extreme 61
14 Nov after	40.0 °C	12 %	31 km/h	Extreme 60
15 Nov after	40.0 °C	13 %	30 km/h	Extreme 58
16 Nov after	39.4 °C	13 %	38 km/h	Extreme 65
17 Nov after	38.8 °C	13 %	35 km/h	Extreme 63
18 Nov after	38.7 °C	14 %	34 km/h	Extreme 57
19 Nov after	39.1 °C	13 %	29 km/h	Extreme 57
20 Nov after	39.2 °C	13 %	36 km/h	Extreme 60
21 Nov after	39.4 °C	16 %	35 km/h	Extreme 59

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 31 Oct 2016

After · 18 Nov 2016

Before After

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 · 130Every 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 time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Chad ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Fitri fire last?: GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 7 November 2016 and 11 November 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 4,291 hectares (42.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Fitri (4,314 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 39.4 °C, humidity dropped to 7 % and gusts hit 38 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 61, class Extreme.
Where does this data come from?: From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Chad (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

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

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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What do you think is wrong?

Dates or duration Place or towns Burned area Name It was not a wildfire Same fire as another page Something else

What really happened?

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How we know this

Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery; 2 polygons grouped in this page.
Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 130 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
We have not matched this page with any official record.
Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.

How we build fire pages: methodology ›

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 ADM2 (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.

Where it burned