Pitche fire, 24 February 2021 Pitche
The fire started on 24 February 2021 in Pitche, Guinea-Bissau, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 1,161 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 104th largest in Gabú since 2016 (of 162 with a page). Number 13 in Guinea-Bissau in 2021, of 20.
The power measured by the satellite is low (15.6 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.
- Burnt area
- 1,161ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 8days
- 24 Feb 2021 – 3 Mar 2021
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- sectors
- Started on
- 24 Feb
- 2021
- Heat detections
- 33
- in a single hotspot: 16 MW
- Energy released
- 208MW
- sum of detected power
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
This area had burned before
12% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 135 ha in 2019.
What happened to each town
-
Pitche where it started1,168 ha reached on 25 Feb0.6 %
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.
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
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 · 33Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 3,506 haPitche31 January 2022 · 14 days · 6 km away
- 3,690 haPakour10 March 2020 · 6 days · 31 km away
- 3,974 haPitche11 March 2020 · 8 days · 33 km away
- 3,225 haPakourJanuary 2017 · 6 days · 33 km away
- 4,437 haGabú25 February 2021 · 7 days · 35 km away
- 3,693 haFoulamory13 March 2020 · 10 days · 35 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Pitche fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 24 February 2021 to 3 March 2021 (8 days). The perimeter dates it from 26 February 2021 to 3 March 2021.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 1,161 hectares (11.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Pitche (1,168 ha, 0.6 %).
- 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.
Report an error
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.