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Karun fire, October 2018 Shadegan, Karun

Out · last detection 23 Oct 2018, 22:01 UTC

The fire started on 4 October 2018 in Karun, Iran, and satellites saw it burning for 20 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 1,170 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 31th largest in Khuzestan since 2016 (of 40 with a page). Number 7 in Iran in 2018, of 14.

Burnt area
1,170ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
20days
4 Oct 2018 – 23 Oct 2018
Municipalities hit
2
counties
Started on
4 Oct
2018
Heat detections
152
in a single hotspot: 0 MW
Danger at start
96
Very extreme · FWI index
Energy released
3.5GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

23 Oct 2018
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 4 Oct23 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

456789101112131415161718192223

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

The weather it burned in

43°high
54km/h · peak gust
6%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 4.4 mm on 27 Oct.

This area had burned before

23% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 265 ha in 2016, 330 ha in 2017. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 265 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Shadegan
    593 ha
    0.2 %
  2. Karun where it started
    582 ha
    0.5 %

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 Oct 43.3 °C 6 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 96
5 Oct 42.2 °C 10 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 81
6 Oct 42.6 °C 9 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 68
7 Oct 41.4 °C 16 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
8 Oct 40.7 °C 18 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
9 Oct 41.9 °C 10 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 75
10 Oct 42.3 °C 12 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
11 Oct 41.9 °C 11 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
12 Oct 41.1 °C 14 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
13 Oct 40.3 °C 17 % 19 km/h 0.5 mm Extreme 56
14 Oct 37.4 °C 31 % 24 km/h 0.9 mm High 33
15 Oct 34.7 °C 23 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
16 Oct 37.3 °C 20 % 23 km/h 0.1 mm Very high 47
17 Oct 38.4 °C 14 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
18 Oct 36.5 °C 25 % 27 km/h 1.8 mm High 33
19 Oct 35.8 °C 18 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
20 Oct 34.3 °C 25 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
21 Oct 36.1 °C 22 % 36 km/h 1.9 mm Very high 43
22 Oct 30.6 °C 47 % 35 km/h 3.0 mm Moderate 12
23 Oct 32.1 °C 43 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
24 Oct after 32.1 °C 32 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
25 Oct after 33.3 °C 27 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
26 Oct after 33.3 °C 33 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
27 Oct after 26.5 °C 55 % 40 km/h 4.4 mm Low 9

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 27 Sept 2018
After · 30 Oct 2018

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 · 0Every 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 Iran ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Karun fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 4 October 2018 and 23 October 2018: 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 1,170 hectares (11.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Shadegan (593 ha, 0.2 %); Karun (582 ha, 0.5 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 43.3 °C, humidity dropped to 6 % and gusts hit 54 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 96, class Very extreme.
Where does this data come from?
From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Iran (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: 125

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.

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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 125.

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 (Open Data Commons Open Database License 1.0). 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.