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Lac Iro fire, 21 December 2017 Lac Iro

Out · last detection 24 Dec 2017, 23:30 UTC

The fire started on 21 December 2017 in Lac Iro, Chad, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,476 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 26th largest in Moyen-Chari since 2016 (of 225 with a page). Number 30 in Chad in 2017, of 171.

Burnt area
4,476ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
4days
21 Dec 2017 – 24 Dec 2017
Municipalities hit
1
departments
Started on
21 Dec
2017
Heat detections
98
in a single hotspot: 94 MW
Danger at start
48
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
1.6GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

24 Dec 2017
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 21 Dec24 Dec

How it evolved, day by day

21222324

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
38km/h · peak gust
13%lowest humidity

It had gone 45 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

16% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 738 ha in 2016.

What happened to each town

  1. Lac Iro where it started
    4,502 ha reached on 21 Dec
    0.2 %

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)
21 Dec 37.5 °C 16 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
22 Dec 37.4 °C 18 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
23 Dec 37.2 °C 21 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
24 Dec 36.7 °C 13 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
25 Dec after 34.8 °C 17 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
26 Dec after 34.0 °C 18 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
27 Dec after 33.7 °C 16 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
28 Dec after 33.8 °C 16 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
29 Dec after 33.2 °C 18 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
30 Dec after 34.3 °C 16 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
31 Dec after 34.3 °C 18 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
1 Jan after 32.8 °C 15 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
2 Jan after 31.9 °C 11 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
3 Jan after 31.9 °C 12 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 14 Dec 2017
After · 31 Dec 2017

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 · 98Every 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 Lac Iro fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 21 December 2017 and 24 December 2017: 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 4,476 hectares (44.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Lac Iro (4,502 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.5 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 38 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 52, class 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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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.