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Morafenobe fire, 5 October 2023 Morafenobe, Tsiroanomandidy

Out · last detection 15 Oct 2023, 11:17 UTC

The fire started on 5 October 2023 in Morafenobe, Madagascar, and satellites saw it burning for 10 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,599 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 15th largest in Melaky since 2016 (of 22 with a page). Number 15 in Madagascar in 2023, of 32.

Burnt area
2,599ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
10days
5 Oct 2023 – 14 Oct 2023
Municipalities hit
2
districts
Started on
5 Oct
2023
Heat detections
205
in a single hotspot: 64 MW
Energy released
1.5GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

15 Oct 2023
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 5 Oct14 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

56789101112131415

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

This area had burned before

90% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 361 ha in 2020, 450 ha in 2021, 2,294 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,347 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Morafenobe where it started
    2,611 ha reached on 28 Sept
    0.4 %
  2. Tsiroanomandidy
    6 ha reached on 9 Oct
    0.0 %

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.

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 28 Sept 2023
After · 21 Oct 2023

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 · 205Every 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 Morafenobe fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 5 October 2023 and 14 October 2023: 10 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 2,599 hectares (26.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Morafenobe (2,611 ha, 0.4 %); Tsiroanomandidy (6 ha, 0.0 %).
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.