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Lac Iro fire, 7 January 2020 Lac Iro

Out · last detection 13 Jan 2020, 11:31 UTC

The fire started on 7 January 2020 in Lac Iro, Chad, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,662 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 113th largest in Moyen-Chari since 2016 (of 225 with a page). Number 101 in Chad in 2020, of 175.

Burnt area
2,662ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
6days
7 Jan 2020 – 12 Jan 2020
Municipalities hit
1
departments
Started on
7 Jan
2020
Heat detections
81
in a single hotspot: 56 MW
Danger at start
46
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
1.6GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

13 Jan 2020
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 7 Jan12 Jan

How it evolved, day by day

791213

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

The weather it burned in

36°high
41km/h · peak gust
12%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

11% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 280 ha in 2017.

What happened to each town

  1. Lac Iro where it started
    2,675 ha reached on 4 Jan
    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)
7 Jan 35.4 °C 19 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
8 Jan 36.5 °C 19 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
9 Jan 36.4 °C 16 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
10 Jan 36.4 °C 16 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
11 Jan 35.3 °C 12 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
12 Jan 34.8 °C 12 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
13 Jan after 34.5 °C 11 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
14 Jan after 35.6 °C 15 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
15 Jan after 36.9 °C 15 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
16 Jan after 37.2 °C 13 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
17 Jan after 36.7 °C 14 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
18 Jan after 35.3 °C 16 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
19 Jan after 35.0 °C 17 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
20 Jan after 34.2 °C 14 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
21 Jan after 34.7 °C 11 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 63
22 Jan after 34.5 °C 10 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 63

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 31 Dec 2019
After · 19 Jan 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 · 81Every 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 7 January 2020 and 12 January 2020: 6 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 2,662 hectares (26.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Lac Iro (2,675 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.5 °C, humidity dropped to 12 % and gusts hit 41 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 55, 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.