Skip to content
worldfires
MR · Mauritania · →

Kankossa fire, April 2017 Kankossa

Out · last detection 11 Apr 2017, 14:37 UTC

The fire started on 10 April 2017 in Kankossa, Mauritania, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,278 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 11th largest in Assaba since 2016 (of 44 with a page). The largest in Mauritania in 2017, of 8.

The power measured by the satellite is low (24.8 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Burnt area
3,278ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
2days
10 Apr 2017 – 11 Apr 2017
Municipalities hit
1
departments
Started on
10 Apr
2017
Heat detections
63
in a single hotspot: 25 MW
Danger at start
76
Very extreme · FWI index
Energy released
352MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

11 Apr 2017
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 10 Apr11 Apr

How it evolved, day by day

1011

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

The weather it burned in

42°high
44km/h · peak gust
7%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. Kankossa where it started
    3,293 ha reached on 10 Apr
    0.3 %

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)
10 Apr 42.3 °C 9 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 76
11 Apr 40.4 °C 7 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 75
12 Apr after 37.1 °C 9 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 83
13 Apr after 38.3 °C 10 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 84
14 Apr after 38.4 °C 10 % 62 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 94
15 Apr after 39.2 °C 7 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 79
16 Apr after 42.4 °C 8 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
17 Apr after 43.2 °C 10 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 67
18 Apr after 41.2 °C 20 % 43 km/h 0.1 mm Extreme 61
19 Apr after 41.2 °C 15 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
20 Apr after 43.5 °C 7 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 72
21 Apr after 43.5 °C 10 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 75

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 3 Apr 2017
After · 18 Apr 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 · 63Every 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 Mauritania ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Kankossa fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 10 April 2017 and 11 April 2017: 2 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 3,278 hectares (32.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Kankossa (3,293 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 42.3 °C, humidity dropped to 7 % and gusts hit 44 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 76, class Very extreme.
Where does this data come from?
From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Mauritania (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.

Report an error
What do you think is wrong?

We will only use your email to reply about this report. Privacy.

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.