Fouli fire, 25 October 2019 Fouli
The fire started on 25 October 2019 in Fouli, Chad, and satellites saw it burning for 10 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,567 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 27th largest in Lac since 2016 (of 44 with a page). Number 88 in Chad in 2019, of 154.
Compare with…
Suggestions: Kaya · 2016Kaya · 2018Fouli · 2017Fouli · 2017
- Burnt area
- 2,567ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 10days
- 25 Oct 2019 – 3 Nov 2019
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- departments
- Started on
- 25 Oct
- 2019
- Heat detections
- 103
- in a single hotspot: 112 MW
- Danger at start
- 55
- Extreme · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 348MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone 12 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
89% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,712 ha in 2016, 1,869 ha in 2017, 1,710 ha in 2018. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,273 ha that had burned before.
- 1,712 ha Kaya fire, September 2016 57,635 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,710 ha Kaya fire, October 2018 23,249 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,395 ha Fouli fire, October 2017 42,926 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 474 ha Fouli fire, October 2017 4,876 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
How big is it?
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Paris boundary: geoBoundaries · Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière (IGN-F) (Etalab Open License 2.0).
Madrid boundary: geoBoundaries · Open Data ESRI, IGN Central Registry of Cartography Area (CC BY 4.0).
Berlin boundary: geoBoundaries · Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy (dl-de/by-2-0).
This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.
What happened to each town
-
Fouli where it started2,579 ha reached on 25 Oct0.3 %
Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance runs from the point marking the centre of each area to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.
People and buildings inside the perimeter
GHSL 2020Inside the perimeter there were about 1.7 hectares of built-up land and about 300 residents (GHSL 2020, satellite-based estimate).
This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned.
Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 25 Oct | 39.1 °C | 16 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 55 |
| 26 Oct | 37.6 °C | 15 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 27 Oct | 38.6 °C | 13 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 56 |
| 28 Oct | 35.9 °C | 14 % | 18 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 29 Oct | 37.6 °C | 6 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 56 |
| 30 Oct | 39.5 °C | 7 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 64 |
| 31 Oct | 38.1 °C | 6 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 68 |
| 1 Nov | 39.1 °C | 4 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 67 |
| 2 Nov | 39.9 °C | 8 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 71 |
| 3 Nov | 39.6 °C | 4 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 70 |
| 4 Nov after | 40.6 °C | 3 % | 49 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 88 |
| 5 Nov after | 39.7 °C | 6 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 80 |
| 6 Nov after | 38.8 °C | 3 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 73 |
| 7 Nov after | 40.0 °C | 3 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 70 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
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 · 103Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 23,249 haKayaOctober 2018 · 36 days · 10 km away
- 42,926 haFouli2 October 2017 · 20 days · 12 km away
- 57,635 haKaya27 September 2016 · 44 days · 13 km away
- 27,753 haAbadam21 October 2019 · 21 days · 19 km away
- 32,284 haKukawa7 October 2018 · 26 days · 23 km away
- 43,877 haAbadam1 October 2021 · 44 days · 27 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Fouli fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 25 October 2019 to 3 November 2019 (10 days). The perimeter dates it from 25 October 2019 to 28 October 2019.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 2,567 hectares (25.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Fouli (2,579 ha, 0.3 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 39.1 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 33 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 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
History of this page · 1 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
- Last day with fire: 28 October 2019 → 3 November 2019.
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.
Report an error
How we know this
- Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery.
- Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 25 October 2019 to 28 October 2019. 103 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.
- Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2020, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.
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.