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Keilak fire, December 2017 Keilak

Out · last detection 26 Dec 2017, 22:52 UTC

The fire started on 20 December 2017 in Keilak, Sudan, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,252 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 55th largest in West Kordofan since 2016 (of 175 with a page). Number 52 in Sudan in 2017, of 137.

Burnt area
3,252ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
7days
20 Dec 2017 – 26 Dec 2017
Municipalities hit
1
localities
Started on
20 Dec
2017
Heat detections
80
in a single hotspot: 74 MW
Danger at start
56
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
826MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

26 Dec 2017
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 20 Dec26 Dec

How it evolved, day by day

20212223242526

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

The weather it burned in

40°high
44km/h · peak gust
9%lowest humidity

It had gone 46 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

26% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 838 ha in 2016.

What happened to each town

  1. Keilak where it started
    3,268 ha reached on 20 Dec
    0.4 %

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)
20 Dec 39.7 °C 11 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
21 Dec 40.2 °C 11 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
22 Dec 40.1 °C 9 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
23 Dec 39.8 °C 9 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
24 Dec 39.8 °C 9 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 65
25 Dec 37.7 °C 12 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 71
26 Dec 37.6 °C 10 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 67
27 Dec after 37.5 °C 13 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
28 Dec after 39.0 °C 12 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
29 Dec after 39.9 °C 9 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
30 Dec after 39.1 °C 9 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 65
31 Dec after 37.3 °C 12 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 71
1 Jan after 33.0 °C 12 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 68
2 Jan after 32.2 °C 14 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
3 Jan after 33.3 °C 14 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
4 Jan after 33.5 °C 14 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 64
5 Jan after 32.7 °C 12 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 13 Dec 2017
After · 2 Jan 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 · 80Every 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 Sudan ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Keilak fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 20 December 2017 and 26 December 2017: 7 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 3,252 hectares (32.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Keilak (3,268 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 40.2 °C, humidity dropped to 9 % and gusts hit 44 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 71, class Very extreme.
Where does this data come from?
From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Sudan (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.

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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.