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Isabela fire, September 2017 Isabela

Out · last detection 23 Sept 2017, 07:03 UTC

The fire started on 4 September 2017 in Isabela, Ecuador, and satellites saw it burning for 20 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,104 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

The largest in Ecuador in 2017, of 4.

Burnt area
5,104ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
20days
4 Sept 2017 – 23 Sept 2017
Municipalities hit
1
cantons
Started on
4 Sept
2017
Heat detections
937
in a single hotspot: 915 MW
Danger at start
3
Very low · FWI index
Energy released
21.1GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

23 Sept 2017
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 4 Sept23 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

4567891011121314151617181920212223

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

The weather it burned in

15°high
38km/h · peak gust
81%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months 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.

What happened to each town

  1. Isabela where it started
    5,139 ha reached on 4 Sept
    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)
4 Sept 14.2 °C 86 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 3
5 Sept 14.3 °C 87 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 2
6 Sept 14.7 °C 85 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 2
7 Sept 14.1 °C 90 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 2
8 Sept 14.0 °C 89 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 2
9 Sept 13.9 °C 86 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 2
10 Sept 13.8 °C 85 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 3
11 Sept 14.0 °C 82 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 2
12 Sept 14.2 °C 83 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 2
13 Sept 13.8 °C 87 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 3
14 Sept 13.8 °C 86 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 2
15 Sept 13.7 °C 86 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 2
16 Sept 13.2 °C 88 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 2
17 Sept 13.7 °C 88 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 2
18 Sept 13.4 °C 89 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 2
19 Sept 13.7 °C 87 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 3
20 Sept 14.1 °C 81 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 3
21 Sept 14.1 °C 82 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 2
22 Sept 13.1 °C 90 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 2
23 Sept 13.0 °C 91 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 2
24 Sept after 13.2 °C 90 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 2
25 Sept after 13.5 °C 89 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 3
26 Sept after 13.8 °C 89 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 2
27 Sept after 13.3 °C 91 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 2
28 Sept after 13.7 °C 90 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 2
29 Sept after 13.0 °C 93 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 2
30 Sept after 13.0 °C 92 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 3
1 Oct after 12.8 °C 89 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 2
2 Oct after 13.1 °C 91 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 2
3 Oct after 13.6 °C 90 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 2
4 Oct after 13.6 °C 89 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 2
5 Oct after 14.5 °C 84 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 3
6 Oct after 14.9 °C 83 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 2
7 Oct after 16.1 °C 77 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 2
8 Oct after 16.1 °C 75 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm Very low 3

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 28 Aug 2017
After · 30 Sept 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 · 937Every 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 Ecuador ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Isabela fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 4 September 2017 and 23 September 2017: 20 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 5,104 hectares (51.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Isabela (5,139 ha, 1.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 14.7 °C, humidity dropped to 81 % and gusts hit 38 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 3, class Very low.
Where does this data come from?
From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Ecuador (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.

Emergency number: 911

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.

Report an error
What do you think is wrong?

We will only use your email to reply about this report. Privacy. This is not an emergency service: if there is a fire now, call 911.

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.