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Mahabo fire, October 2019 Mahabo

Out · last detection 7 Nov 2019, 10:39 UTC

The fire started on 22 October 2019 in Mahabo, Madagascar, and satellites saw it burning for 16 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,010 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 36th largest in Menabe since 2016 (of 98 with a page). Number 13 in Madagascar in 2019, of 38.

Burnt area
3,010ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
16days
22 Oct 2019 – 6 Nov 2019
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
22 Oct
2019
Heat detections
380
in a single hotspot: 67 MW
Danger at start
38
High · FWI index
Energy released
2.6GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

7 Nov 2019
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 22 Oct6 Nov

How it evolved, day by day

2223242526272830311234567

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
41km/h · peak gust
24%lowest humidity

It had gone 13 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 10.3 mm on 16 Nov.

This area had burned before

98% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,350 ha in 2017, 2,932 ha in 2018. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,961 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Mahabo where it started
    3,015 ha reached on 15 Oct
    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)
22 Oct 35.2 °C 32 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
23 Oct 37.3 °C 27 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
24 Oct 37.0 °C 30 % 38 km/h 0.2 mm Very high 40
25 Oct 37.8 °C 32 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
26 Oct 37.6 °C 38 % 33 km/h 0.7 mm High 32
27 Oct 37.6 °C 35 % 35 km/h 0.9 mm High 32
28 Oct 37.3 °C 34 % 36 km/h 0.8 mm High 34
29 Oct 34.0 °C 53 % 31 km/h 0.7 mm Moderate 21
30 Oct 37.4 °C 32 % 38 km/h 0.9 mm High 33
31 Oct 38.3 °C 34 % 37 km/h 2.0 mm High 23
1 Nov 36.8 °C 33 % 35 km/h 0.6 mm High 32
2 Nov 35.4 °C 25 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
3 Nov 33.0 °C 36 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
4 Nov 35.3 °C 24 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
5 Nov 36.3 °C 25 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
6 Nov 35.4 °C 33 % 32 km/h 0.2 mm High 36
7 Nov after 35.1 °C 34 % 37 km/h 0.2 mm High 36
8 Nov after 35.1 °C 36 % 32 km/h 0.3 mm High 34
9 Nov after 36.1 °C 31 % 34 km/h 0.2 mm High 37
10 Nov after 36.4 °C 29 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
11 Nov after 36.8 °C 23 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
12 Nov after 35.6 °C 30 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
13 Nov after 35.7 °C 29 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
14 Nov after 35.4 °C 33 % 40 km/h 0.2 mm Very high 41
15 Nov after 35.0 °C 35 % 40 km/h 0.4 mm Very high 40
16 Nov after 30.3 °C 51 % 53 km/h 10.3 mm Low 6

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 15 Oct 2019
After · 13 Nov 2019

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 · 380Every 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 22 October 2019 and 6 November 2019: 16 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 3,010 hectares (30.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Mahabo (3,015 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 38.3 °C, humidity dropped to 24 % and gusts hit 41 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 42, 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.