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Kilgoris fire, August 2020 Kilgoris

Out · last detection 3 Aug 2020, 11:22 UTC

The fire started on 1 August 2020 in Kilgoris, Kenya, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,664 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 7th largest in Narok since 2016 (of 47 with a page). Number 9 in Kenya in 2020, of 62.

Burnt area
2,664ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
3days
1 Aug 2020 – 3 Aug 2020
Municipalities hit
1
constituencies
Started on
1 Aug
2020
Heat detections
76
in a single hotspot: 40 MW
Danger at start
32
High · FWI index
Energy released
625MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

3 Aug 2020
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 1 Aug3 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

123

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

The weather it burned in

29°high
41km/h · peak gust
28%lowest humidity

It had gone 9 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

40% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 774 ha in 2016, 288 ha in 2018.

What happened to each town

  1. Kilgoris where it started
    2,682 ha reached on 1 Aug
    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)
1 Aug 29.0 °C 28 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
2 Aug 27.4 °C 32 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
3 Aug 26.7 °C 32 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
4 Aug after 27.3 °C 35 % 29 km/h 0.2 mm High 30
5 Aug after 28.2 °C 32 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
6 Aug after 29.4 °C 24 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
7 Aug after 28.3 °C 32 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
8 Aug after 27.6 °C 32 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
9 Aug after 26.6 °C 31 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
10 Aug after 29.4 °C 26 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
11 Aug after 28.8 °C 32 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
12 Aug after 26.8 °C 45 % 24 km/h 0.2 mm High 27
13 Aug after 28.1 °C 37 % 27 km/h 0.1 mm High 27

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 25 Jul 2020
After · 10 Aug 2020

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 · 76Every 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 Kilgoris fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 1 August 2020 and 3 August 2020: 3 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 2,664 hectares (26.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Kilgoris (2,682 ha, 1.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 29.0 °C, humidity dropped to 28 % and gusts hit 41 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 34, class High.
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

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 999 · 112.

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.