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Manja fire, August 2017 Manja

Out · last detection 19 Aug 2017, 21:38 UTC

The fire started on 6 August 2017 in Manja, Madagascar, and satellites saw it burning for 13 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,231 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 32th largest in Menabe since 2016 (of 98 with a page). Number 21 in Madagascar in 2017, of 57.

Burnt area
3,231ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
13days
6 Aug 2017 – 18 Aug 2017
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
6 Aug
2017
Heat detections
196
in a single hotspot: 336 MW
Danger at start
38
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
8.3GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

19 Aug 2017
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 6 Aug18 Aug

How it evolved, day by day

68910111213141516171819

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

The weather it burned in

31°high
47km/h · peak gust
21%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

25% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 797 ha in 2016.

What happened to each town

  1. Manja where it started
    3,243 ha reached on 6 Aug
    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)
6 Aug 28.9 °C 32 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
7 Aug 29.7 °C 26 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
8 Aug 30.1 °C 27 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
9 Aug 30.5 °C 31 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
10 Aug 30.6 °C 34 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
11 Aug 31.3 °C 28 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
12 Aug 31.3 °C 21 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
13 Aug 30.2 °C 31 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
14 Aug 29.2 °C 37 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
15 Aug 29.4 °C 38 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
16 Aug 28.8 °C 44 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
17 Aug 31.0 °C 37 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
18 Aug 30.1 °C 43 % 29 km/h 0.1 mm High 29
19 Aug after 30.9 °C 38 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
20 Aug after 30.5 °C 37 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
21 Aug after 29.9 °C 37 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
22 Aug after 30.5 °C 37 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
23 Aug after 28.4 °C 51 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
24 Aug after 30.2 °C 37 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
25 Aug after 30.5 °C 27 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
26 Aug after 31.5 °C 28 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
27 Aug after 31.5 °C 30 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
28 Aug after 30.7 °C 33 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 30 Jul 2017
After · 25 Aug 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 · 196Every 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 Manja fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 6 August 2017 and 18 August 2017: 13 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 3,231 hectares (32.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Manja (3,243 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 31.3 °C, humidity dropped to 21 % and gusts hit 47 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 47, 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.