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Oure Kaba fire, March 2016 Oure Kaba

Out · last detection 30 Mar 2016, 14:05 UTC

The fire started on 24 March 2016 in Oure Kaba, Guinea, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,724 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 32th largest in Mamou since 2016 (of 74 with a page). Number 73 in Guinea in 2016, of 172.

Burnt area
2,724ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
6days
24 Mar 2016 – 29 Mar 2016
Municipalities hit
1
sub-prefectures
Started on
24 Mar
2016
Heat detections
96
in a single hotspot: 150 MW
Danger at start
44
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
956MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

30 Mar 2016
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 24 Mar29 Mar

How it evolved, day by day

24252627282930

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
31km/h · peak gust
19%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

What happened to each town

  1. Oure Kaba where it started
    2,742 ha reached on 22 Mar
    1.6 %

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)
24 Mar 35.9 °C 19 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
25 Mar 35.4 °C 21 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
26 Mar 35.1 °C 20 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
27 Mar 35.5 °C 29 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
28 Mar 36.3 °C 22 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
29 Mar 37.1 °C 21 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
30 Mar after 36.6 °C 23 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
31 Mar after 33.4 °C 27 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
1 Apr after 35.0 °C 28 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
2 Apr after 35.2 °C 23 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
3 Apr after 36.0 °C 23 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
4 Apr after 37.2 °C 17 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
5 Apr after 34.4 °C 27 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
6 Apr after 35.7 °C 22 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
7 Apr after 34.1 °C 28 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
8 Apr after 32.9 °C 33 % 33 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 · 17 Mar 2016
After · 5 Apr 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 · 96Every 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 Guinea ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Oure Kaba fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 24 March 2016 and 29 March 2016: 6 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 2,724 hectares (27.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Oure Kaba (2,742 ha, 1.6 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.1 °C, humidity dropped to 19 % and gusts hit 31 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 44, class Very high.
Where does this data come from?
From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Guinea (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 ADM3 (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.