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Pakour fire, January 2017 Pakour

Out · last detection 5 Feb 2017, 14:55 UTC

The fire started on 31 January 2017 in Pakour, Senegal, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,225 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 53th largest in Kolda since 2016 (of 195 with a page). Number 18 in Senegal in 2017, of 75.

Burnt area
3,225ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
6days
31 Jan 2017 – 5 Feb 2017
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
31 Jan
2017
Heat detections
103
in a single hotspot: 53 MW
Danger at start
44
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
496MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

5 Feb 2017
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 31 Jan5 Feb

How it evolved, day by day

3112345

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
48km/h · peak gust
11%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

19% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 600 ha in 2016.

What happened to each town

  1. Pakour where it started
    3,244 ha reached on 28 Jan
    2.7 %

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)
31 Jan 35.9 °C 14 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
1 Feb 35.3 °C 13 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
2 Feb 34.2 °C 13 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
3 Feb 35.2 °C 13 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
4 Feb 36.2 °C 12 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
5 Feb 35.3 °C 11 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
6 Feb after 36.3 °C 12 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
7 Feb after 37.1 °C 13 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
8 Feb after 36.5 °C 11 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
9 Feb after 36.3 °C 9 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
10 Feb after 36.9 °C 8 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
11 Feb after 35.1 °C 18 % 16 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
12 Feb after 35.6 °C 15 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
13 Feb after 37.2 °C 12 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
14 Feb after 37.9 °C 11 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
15 Feb after 39.4 °C 12 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 24 Jan 2017
After · 12 Feb 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 · 103Every 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 Senegal ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Pakour fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 31 January 2017 and 5 February 2017: 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 3,225 hectares (32.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Pakour (3,244 ha, 2.7 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.2 °C, humidity dropped to 11 % and gusts hit 48 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 62, class Extreme.
Where does this data come from?
From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Senegal (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.

Emergency number: 18

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.

Report an error
What do you think is wrong?

We will only use your email to reply about this report. Privacy. This is not an emergency service: if there is a fire now, call 18.

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.