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Lainé fire, 23 January 2017 Gueasso, Lainé, Gama Berema

Out · last detection 31 Jan 2017, 02:02 UTC

The fire started on 23 January 2017 in Lainé, Guinea, and satellites saw it burning for 9 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,145 hectares from heat detections, spread across 4 municipalities.

It is the 19th largest in Nzérékoré since 2016 (of 241 with a page). Number 28 in Guinea in 2017, of 172.

Burnt area
5,145ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
9days
23 Jan 2017 – 31 Jan 2017
Municipalities hit
4
sub-prefectures
Started on
23 Jan
2017
Heat detections
225
in a single hotspot: 114 MW
Danger at start
23
High · FWI index
Energy released
2.3GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

31 Jan 2017
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 23 Jan31 Jan

How it evolved, day by day

2325262728293031

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

The weather it burned in

35°high
30km/h · peak gust
15%lowest humidity

It had gone 2 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.7 mm on 2 Feb.

This area had burned before

18% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 929 ha in 2016.

What happened to each town

  1. Gueasso
    2,738 ha reached on 20 Jan
    3.0 %
  2. Lainé where it started
    1,852 ha reached on 18 Jan
    4.4 %
  3. Gama Berema
    306 ha reached on 25 Jan
    0.6 %
  4. Kokota
    281 ha reached on 28 Jan
    1.3 %

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)
23 Jan 33.5 °C 22 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
24 Jan 33.4 °C 37 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
25 Jan 34.1 °C 31 % 17 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
26 Jan 34.4 °C 33 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
27 Jan 35.0 °C 28 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
28 Jan 35.3 °C 15 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
29 Jan 35.4 °C 18 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
30 Jan 34.6 °C 29 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
31 Jan 35.0 °C 34 % 30 km/h 0.3 mm High 30
1 Feb after 33.6 °C 40 % 32 km/h 0.1 mm High 26
2 Feb after 33.8 °C 30 % 34 km/h 2.7 mm Moderate 13

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 16 Jan 2017
After · 7 Feb 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 · 225Every 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 Lainé fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 23 January 2017 and 31 January 2017: 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 5,145 hectares (51.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 4 municipalities: Gueasso (2,738 ha, 3.0 %); Lainé (1,852 ha, 4.4 %); Gama Berema (306 ha, 0.6 %); Kokota (281 ha, 1.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 35.4 °C, humidity dropped to 15 % and gusts hit 30 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 31, class 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.

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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 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.