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Morondava fire, 10 October 2017 Morondava

Out · last detection 18 Oct 2017, 10:02 UTC

The fire started on 10 October 2017 in Morondava, Madagascar, and satellites saw it burning for 9 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,536 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 31th largest in Menabe since 2016 (of 98 with a page). Number 16 in Madagascar in 2017, of 57.

Burnt area
3,536ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
9days
10 Oct 2017 – 18 Oct 2017
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
10 Oct
2017
Heat detections
287
in a single hotspot: 160 MW
Danger at start
26
High · FWI index
Energy released
2.4GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

18 Oct 2017
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 10 Oct18 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

101112131415161718

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

The weather it burned in

36°high
54km/h · peak gust
23%lowest humidity

It had gone one day without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.1 mm on 26 Oct.

This area had burned before

54% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,902 ha in 2016.

What happened to each town

  1. Morondava where it started
    3,544 ha reached on 4 Oct
    0.6 %

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)
10 Oct 33.8 °C 37 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
11 Oct 34.5 °C 42 % 43 km/h 0.1 mm High 30
12 Oct 33.4 °C 44 % 47 km/h 0.1 mm High 32
13 Oct 33.7 °C 23 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
14 Oct 33.9 °C 28 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
15 Oct 34.2 °C 26 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
16 Oct 36.0 °C 29 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
17 Oct 35.7 °C 34 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
18 Oct 35.1 °C 42 % 42 km/h 0.2 mm High 36
19 Oct after 35.4 °C 40 % 43 km/h 0.3 mm High 35
20 Oct after 38.0 °C 28 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
21 Oct after 37.8 °C 31 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
22 Oct after 37.5 °C 27 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
23 Oct after 35.7 °C 33 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
24 Oct after 36.2 °C 36 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
25 Oct after 35.2 °C 43 % 41 km/h 0.2 mm High 35
26 Oct after 34.2 °C 46 % 42 km/h 1.1 mm High 23

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 3 Oct 2017
After · 25 Oct 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 · 287Every 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 Morondava fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 10 October 2017 and 18 October 2017: 9 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 3,536 hectares (35.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Morondava (3,544 ha, 0.6 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.0 °C, humidity dropped to 23 % and gusts hit 54 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 45, 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.