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Kimiti fire, April 2018 Kimiti, Abdi

Out · last detection 11 Apr 2018, 01:03 UTC

The fire started on 8 April 2018 in Kimiti, Chad, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,129 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 99th largest in Sila since 2016 (of 227 with a page). Number 24 in Chad in 2018, of 78.

The power measured by the satellite is low (29.2 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Kimiti · 2023Kimiti · 2020Kimiti · 2019

Burnt area
3,129ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
4days
8 Apr 2018 – 11 Apr 2018
Municipalities hit
2
departments
Started on
8 Apr
2018
Heat detections
82
in a single hotspot: 29 MW
Danger at start
72
Very extreme · FWI index
Average daily power
127MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 8 Apr11 Apr
11 Apr 2018

How it evolved, day by day

8 Apr 2018 · 74 MW · 9 9 Apr 2018 · 427 MW · 69 10 Apr 2018 · 5 MW · 2 11 Apr 2018 · 3 MW · 2
8 Apr 9 Apr 10 Apr 11 Apr

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

The weather it burned in

38°high
47km/h · peak gust
4%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.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 2% of the area of London (31 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. Kimiti where it started
    2,024 ha reached on 8 Apr
    0.1 %
  2. Abdi
    1,129 ha reached on 9 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)
8 Apr 36.9 °C 5 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 72
9 Apr 37.5 °C 4 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 74
10 Apr 37.5 °C 5 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 77
11 Apr 37.3 °C 6 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 75
12 Apr after 37.8 °C 5 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 65
13 Apr after 39.4 °C 3 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 65
14 Apr after 40.0 °C 4 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 65
15 Apr after 39.1 °C 5 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 67
16 Apr after 40.1 °C 6 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
17 Apr after 40.0 °C 6 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 79
18 Apr after 39.4 °C 3 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 77
19 Apr after 39.6 °C 5 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 79
20 Apr after 39.5 °C 4 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 73
21 Apr after 39.9 °C 5 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 65

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 1 Apr 2018
After · 18 Apr 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 · 82Every 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 Chad ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Kimiti fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 8 April 2018 and 11 April 2018: 4 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 3,129 hectares (31.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Kimiti (2,024 ha, 0.1 %); Abdi (1,129 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.5 °C, humidity dropped to 4 % and gusts hit 47 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 77, class Very extreme.
Where does this data come from?
From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Chad (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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How we know this
  • Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery.
  • Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 82 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.

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.