Skip to content
worldfires
GN · Guinea · →

Kolenté fire, March 2018 Kolenté, Sougueta

Out · last detection 5 Apr 2018, 14:04 UTC

The fire started on 27 March 2018 in Kolenté, Guinea, and satellites saw it burning for 9 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,963 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 110th largest in Kindia since 2016 (of 242 with a page). Number 38 in Guinea in 2018, of 107.

Burnt area
2,963ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
9days
27 Mar 2018 – 4 Apr 2018
Municipalities hit
2
sub-prefectures
Started on
27 Mar
2018
Heat detections
102
in a single hotspot: 244 MW
Danger at start
44
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
2.7GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

5 Apr 2018
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 27 Mar4 Apr

How it evolved, day by day

27282912345

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
35km/h · peak gust
15%lowest humidity

It had gone 26 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 15.9 mm on 10 Apr.

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

What happened to each town

  1. Kolenté where it started
    2,143 ha reached on 27 Mar
    2.4 %
  2. Sougueta
    840 ha reached on 29 Mar
    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)
27 Mar 38.6 °C 20 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
28 Mar 40.1 °C 15 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
29 Mar 37.8 °C 24 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
30 Mar 37.4 °C 31 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
31 Mar 36.7 °C 28 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
1 Apr 38.0 °C 32 % 27 km/h 1.7 mm High 23
2 Apr 38.3 °C 28 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
3 Apr 37.6 °C 27 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
4 Apr 38.9 °C 23 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
5 Apr after 38.2 °C 22 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
6 Apr after 37.5 °C 25 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
7 Apr after 34.8 °C 42 % 31 km/h 0.2 mm High 31
8 Apr after 33.1 °C 52 % 29 km/h 0.7 mm Moderate 20
9 Apr after 35.4 °C 39 % 25 km/h 0.1 mm High 24
10 Apr after 36.9 °C 39 % 25 km/h 15.9 mm Very low 4

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 20 Mar 2018
After · 11 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 · 102Every 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 Guinea ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Kolenté fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 27 March 2018 and 4 April 2018: 9 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 2,963 hectares (29.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Kolenté (2,143 ha, 2.4 %); Sougueta (840 ha, 0.5 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 40.1 °C, humidity dropped to 15 % and gusts hit 35 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 49, class Very high.
Where does this data come from?
From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Guinea (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 ADM3 (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.