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Pitche fire, 11 March 2020 Pitche, Gabú

Out · last detection 18 Mar 2020, 14:36 UTC

The fire started on 11 March 2020 in Pitche, Guinea-Bissau, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,974 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 3th largest in Gabú since 2016 (of 162 with a page). The largest in Guinea-Bissau in 2020, of 35.

Burnt area
3,974ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
8days
11 Mar 2020 – 18 Mar 2020
Municipalities hit
2
sectors
Started on
11 Mar
2020
Heat detections
156
in a single hotspot: 64 MW
Danger at start
48
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
1.4GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

18 Mar 2020
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 11 Mar18 Mar

How it evolved, day by day

1112131415161718

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

The weather it burned in

40°high
37km/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

16% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 639 ha in 2016.

What happened to each town

  1. Pitche where it started
    2,042 ha reached on 11 Mar
    1.0 %
  2. Gabú
    1,955 ha reached on 12 Mar
    0.7 %

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)
11 Mar 39.2 °C 18 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
12 Mar 40.3 °C 13 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
13 Mar 39.7 °C 14 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
14 Mar 40.0 °C 11 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
15 Mar 39.1 °C 14 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
16 Mar 38.8 °C 13 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
17 Mar 39.0 °C 16 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
18 Mar 38.2 °C 18 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
19 Mar after 37.6 °C 23 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
20 Mar after 39.2 °C 20 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
21 Mar after 41.5 °C 14 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
22 Mar after 39.9 °C 20 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
23 Mar after 37.5 °C 19 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
24 Mar after 36.4 °C 22 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
25 Mar after 36.9 °C 28 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
26 Mar after 37.6 °C 23 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
27 Mar after 37.5 °C 20 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
28 Mar after 38.6 °C 20 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 4 Mar 2020
After · 25 Mar 2020

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 · 156Every 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-Bissau ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Pitche fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 11 March 2020 to 18 March 2020 (8 days). The perimeter dates it from 12 March 2020 to 18 March 2020.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 3,974 hectares (39.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Pitche (2,042 ha, 1.0 %); Gabú (1,955 ha, 0.7 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 40.3 °C, humidity dropped to 11 % and gusts hit 37 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 56, class Extreme.
Where does this data come from?
From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Guinea-Bissau (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 (Open Data Commons Open Database License 1.0). 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.