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Mahabo fire, September 2016 Mahabo

Out · last detection 1 Nov 2016, 11:23 UTC

The fire started on 30 September 2016 in Mahabo, Madagascar, and satellites saw it burning for 32 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,052 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 11th largest in Menabe since 2016 (of 98 with a page). Number 9 in Madagascar in 2016, of 59.

Burnt area
6,052ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
32days
30 Sept 2016 – 31 Oct 2016
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
30 Sept
2016
Heat detections
635
in a single hotspot: 144 MW
Danger at start
29
High · FWI index
Energy released
9.2GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

1 Nov 2016
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 30 Sept31 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

3023456789101112131415161718192021222324252627282930311

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
42km/h · peak gust
19%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.9 mm on 4 Nov.

This area had burned before

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

What happened to each town

  1. Mahabo where it started
    6,070 ha reached on 23 Sept
    0.4 %

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)
30 Sept 32.4 °C 35 % 32 km/h 0.8 mm High 29
1 Oct 32.1 °C 44 % 33 km/h 2.7 mm Low 11
2 Oct 32.7 °C 39 % 32 km/h 0.3 mm High 24
3 Oct 30.9 °C 41 % 42 km/h 1.3 mm High 22
4 Oct 29.3 °C 36 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
5 Oct 27.9 °C 37 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
6 Oct 27.9 °C 36 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
7 Oct 31.8 °C 26 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
8 Oct 34.3 °C 24 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
9 Oct 34.2 °C 27 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
10 Oct 32.9 °C 36 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
11 Oct 35.0 °C 31 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
12 Oct 33.7 °C 42 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
13 Oct 34.5 °C 37 % 36 km/h 0.2 mm High 33
14 Oct 33.0 °C 37 % 30 km/h 0.1 mm High 32
15 Oct 33.2 °C 38 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
16 Oct 32.2 °C 41 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
17 Oct 33.3 °C 48 % 35 km/h 0.6 mm High 25
18 Oct 33.5 °C 40 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
19 Oct 34.6 °C 38 % 32 km/h 0.4 mm High 30
20 Oct 33.6 °C 41 % 35 km/h 0.2 mm High 29
21 Oct 33.9 °C 45 % 34 km/h 1.3 mm Moderate 20
22 Oct 33.3 °C 43 % 33 km/h 4.2 mm Low 9
23 Oct 32.2 °C 50 % 27 km/h 6.1 mm Very low 4
24 Oct 31.4 °C 49 % 26 km/h 8.6 mm Very low 2
25 Oct 32.2 °C 48 % 27 km/h 1.7 mm Very low 4
26 Oct 33.1 °C 36 % 25 km/h 0.2 mm Moderate 14
27 Oct 35.2 °C 30 % 34 km/h 2.6 mm Moderate 12
28 Oct 33.6 °C 29 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
29 Oct 33.0 °C 24 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
30 Oct 33.9 °C 19 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
31 Oct 35.0 °C 21 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
1 Nov after 34.0 °C 27 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
2 Nov after 33.6 °C 35 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
3 Nov after 33.6 °C 36 % 37 km/h 0.2 mm High 28
4 Nov after 33.4 °C 40 % 35 km/h 2.9 mm Low 10

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 23 Sept 2016
After · 7 Nov 2016

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 · 635Every 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 Madagascar ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Mahabo fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 30 September 2016 and 31 October 2016: 32 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 6,052 hectares (60.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Mahabo (6,070 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 35.2 °C, humidity dropped to 19 % and gusts hit 42 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 38, class Very high.
Where does this data come from?
From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Madagascar (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.