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Passaya fire, March 2018 Passaya, Kindoye

Out · last detection 25 Mar 2018, 14:10 UTC

The fire started on 17 March 2018 in Passaya, Guinea, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,616 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 33th largest in Faranah since 2016 (of 208 with a page). Number 13 in Guinea in 2018, of 107.

Burnt area
5,616ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
8days
17 Mar 2018 – 24 Mar 2018
Municipalities hit
2
sub-prefectures
Started on
17 Mar
2018
Heat detections
235
in a single hotspot: 143 MW
Danger at start
43
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
4.1GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

25 Mar 2018
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 17 Mar24 Mar

How it evolved, day by day

171819202122232425

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
42km/h · peak gust
10%lowest humidity

It had gone 16 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 3.8 mm on 1 Apr.

This area had burned before

37% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,831 ha in 2016, 400 ha in 2017. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,060 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Passaya where it started
    4,448 ha reached on 16 Mar
    1.5 %
  2. Kindoye
    1,204 ha reached on 17 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)
17 Mar 36.1 °C 21 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
18 Mar 36.9 °C 21 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
19 Mar 36.6 °C 27 % 34 km/h 0.5 mm Very high 38
20 Mar 34.7 °C 32 % 31 km/h 1.4 mm High 26
21 Mar 37.0 °C 22 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
22 Mar 37.4 °C 12 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
23 Mar 34.3 °C 24 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
24 Mar 34.4 °C 10 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
25 Mar after 36.0 °C 17 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
26 Mar after 36.5 °C 16 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
27 Mar after 37.6 °C 16 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
28 Mar after 39.0 °C 9 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
29 Mar after 37.1 °C 18 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
30 Mar after 34.8 °C 33 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
31 Mar after 35.2 °C 23 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
1 Apr after 33.6 °C 37 % 31 km/h 3.8 mm Low 11

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 10 Mar 2018
After · 31 Mar 2018

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 · 235Every 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 Passaya fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 17 March 2018 and 24 March 2018: 8 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 5,616 hectares (56.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Passaya (4,448 ha, 1.5 %); Kindoye (1,204 ha, 1.6 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.4 °C, humidity dropped to 10 % and gusts hit 42 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 50, 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.