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Mahabo fire, 8 October 2016 Mahabo, Morondava

Out · last detection 4 Nov 2016, 10:27 UTC

The fire started on 8 October 2016 in Mahabo, Madagascar, and satellites saw it burning for 27 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 10,941 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 4th largest in Menabe since 2016 (of 98 with a page). Number 3 in Madagascar in 2016, of 59.

Burnt area
10,941ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
27days
8 Oct 2016 – 3 Nov 2016
Municipalities hit
2
districts
Started on
8 Oct
2016
Heat detections
642
in a single hotspot: 421 MW
Danger at start
28
High · FWI index
Energy released
11.7GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

4 Nov 2016
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 8 Oct3 Nov

How it evolved, day by day

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

The weather it burned in

37°high
41km/h · peak gust
19%lowest humidity

It had gone 0 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.2 mm on 11 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
    6,356 ha reached on 4 Oct
    0.5 %
  2. Morondava
    4,609 ha reached on 5 Oct
    0.8 %

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)
4 Oct 29.9 °C 36 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
5 Oct 28.4 °C 37 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
6 Oct 28.5 °C 36 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
7 Oct 32.4 °C 27 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
8 Oct 34.8 °C 24 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
9 Oct 34.8 °C 28 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
10 Oct 33.4 °C 36 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
11 Oct 35.5 °C 31 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
12 Oct 34.2 °C 42 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
13 Oct 35.0 °C 38 % 36 km/h 0.2 mm High 33
14 Oct 33.5 °C 37 % 30 km/h 0.1 mm High 32
15 Oct 33.7 °C 38 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
16 Oct 32.7 °C 42 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
17 Oct 33.9 °C 48 % 35 km/h 0.6 mm High 25
18 Oct 34.1 °C 40 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
19 Oct 35.2 °C 38 % 32 km/h 0.4 mm High 30
20 Oct 34.2 °C 41 % 35 km/h 0.2 mm High 29
21 Oct 34.4 °C 45 % 34 km/h 1.3 mm Moderate 20
22 Oct 33.8 °C 43 % 33 km/h 4.2 mm Low 9
23 Oct 32.7 °C 50 % 27 km/h 6.1 mm Very low 4
24 Oct 32.0 °C 49 % 26 km/h 8.6 mm Very low 2
25 Oct 32.8 °C 48 % 27 km/h 1.7 mm Very low 5
26 Oct 33.7 °C 36 % 25 km/h 0.2 mm Moderate 14
27 Oct 35.7 °C 31 % 34 km/h 2.6 mm Moderate 12
28 Oct 34.1 °C 30 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
29 Oct 33.6 °C 24 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
30 Oct 34.5 °C 19 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
31 Oct 35.6 °C 21 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
1 Nov 34.5 °C 27 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
2 Nov 34.2 °C 35 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
3 Nov 34.1 °C 37 % 37 km/h 0.2 mm High 28
4 Nov after 34.0 °C 40 % 35 km/h 2.9 mm Low 10
5 Nov after 34.5 °C 37 % 30 km/h 0.3 mm Moderate 19
6 Nov after 33.9 °C 37 % 21 km/h 0.2 mm Moderate 20
7 Nov after 35.8 °C 31 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
8 Nov after 37.1 °C 21 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
9 Nov after 34.2 °C 46 % 30 km/h 0.2 mm High 25
10 Nov after 33.8 °C 49 % 34 km/h 0.8 mm Moderate 17
11 Nov after 32.3 °C 55 % 34 km/h 1.2 mm Moderate 12

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 1 Oct 2016
After · 10 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 · 642Every 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 8 October 2016 and 3 November 2016: 27 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 10,941 hectares (109.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Mahabo (6,356 ha, 0.5 %); Morondava (4,609 ha, 0.8 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.1 °C, humidity dropped to 19 % and gusts hit 41 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.