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Isiolo North fire, 10 June 2019 Isiolo North, Isiolo South

Out · last detection 23 Jun 2019, 10:14 UTC

The fire started on 10 June 2019 in Isiolo North, Kenya, and satellites saw it burning for 14 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 7,275 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 2th largest in Isiolo since 2016 (of 32 with a page). Number 3 in Kenya in 2019, of 40.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Isiolo North · 2016Isiolo South · 2021Isiolo South · 2025Isiolo North · 2019

Burnt area
7,275ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
14days
10 Jun 2019 – 23 Jun 2019
Municipalities hit
2
constituencies
Started on
10 Jun
2019
Heat detections
262
in a single hotspot: 136 MW
Danger at start
53
Extreme · FWI index
Average daily power
290MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 10 Jun23 Jun
23 Jun 2019

How it evolved, day by day

11 Jun 2019 · 392 MW · 32 12 Jun 2019 · 1,259 MW · 74 13 Jun 2019 · 552 MW · 53 14 Jun 2019 · 310 MW · 50 15 Jun 2019 · 104 MW · 16 16 Jun 2019 · 150 MW · 17 17 Jun 2019 · 83 MW · 13 18 Jun 2019 · 5 MW · 1 20 Jun 2019 · 9 MW · 2 23 Jun 2019 · 31 MW · 4
11 Jun 12 Jun 13 Jun 15 Jun 17 Jun 20 Jun

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

The weather it burned in

36°high
60km/h · peak gust
25%lowest humidity

It had gone 35 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

29% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,131 ha in 2016.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 4.6% of the area of London (73 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

  1. Isiolo North where it started
    6,917 ha reached on 11 Jun
    0.4 %
  2. Isiolo South
    408 ha reached on 11 Jun
    0.0 %

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 2020
Built-up area< 0.1 ha
Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (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)
10 Jun 31.6 °C 34 % 56 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
11 Jun 35.0 °C 30 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
12 Jun 35.4 °C 29 % 60 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
13 Jun 35.9 °C 30 % 58 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
14 Jun 34.8 °C 30 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
15 Jun 35.7 °C 27 % 57 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
16 Jun 34.1 °C 29 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
17 Jun 35.8 °C 25 % 56 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
18 Jun 34.5 °C 30 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
19 Jun 36.1 °C 27 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
20 Jun 33.4 °C 36 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
21 Jun 33.5 °C 33 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
22 Jun 34.7 °C 29 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
23 Jun 35.4 °C 27 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
24 Jun after 35.8 °C 31 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
25 Jun after 34.9 °C 31 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
26 Jun after 34.5 °C 30 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
27 Jun after 34.2 °C 33 % 55 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
28 Jun after 34.1 °C 31 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
29 Jun after 34.0 °C 30 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
30 Jun after 35.8 °C 28 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
1 Jul after 35.8 °C 31 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
2 Jul after 35.2 °C 28 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
3 Jul after 34.6 °C 29 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 3 Jun 2019
After · 30 Jun 2019

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 · 262Every 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 Kenya ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Isiolo North fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 10 June 2019 to 23 June 2019 (14 days). The perimeter dates it from 10 June 2019 to 18 June 2019.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 7,275 hectares (72.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Isiolo North (6,917 ha, 0.4 %); Isiolo South (408 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.1 °C, humidity dropped to 25 % and gusts hit 60 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 57, class Extreme.
Where does this data come from?
From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Kenya (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: 999 · 112 · Emergency number and official warnings ›

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.
  1. Last day with fire: 18 June 2019 → 23 June 2019.

RSS Changes to this page

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 999 · 112.

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 10 June 2019 to 18 June 2019. 262 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.

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.