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Pol-e-Dokhtar fire, September 2020 Pol-e-Dokhtar

Out · last detection 22 Sept 2020, 23:16 UTC

The fire started on 19 September 2020 in Pol-e-Dokhtar, Iran, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,610 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the largest fire in Lorestan since 2016 (of 15 with a page). Number 11 in Iran in 2020, of 49.

Burnt area
2,610ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
4days
19 Sept 2020 – 22 Sept 2020
Municipalities hit
1
counties
Started on
19 Sept
2020
Heat detections
129
in a single hotspot: 0 MW
Danger at start
56
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
861MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

22 Sept 2020
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 19 Sept22 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

19202122

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

The weather it burned in

35°high
41km/h · peak gust
9%lowest humidity

It had gone 55 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

5% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 88 ha in 2016, 31 ha in 2019.

What happened to each town

  1. Pol-e-Dokhtar where it started
    2,613 ha
    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)
19 Sept 34.0 °C 11 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
20 Sept 32.7 °C 11 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
21 Sept 34.5 °C 10 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
22 Sept 35.1 °C 9 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
23 Sept after 34.9 °C 8 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
24 Sept after 33.9 °C 9 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
25 Sept after 33.2 °C 7 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
26 Sept after 32.2 °C 9 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
27 Sept after 32.9 °C 13 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
28 Sept after 33.2 °C 14 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
29 Sept after 31.1 °C 16 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
30 Sept after 28.2 °C 27 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
1 Oct after 28.0 °C 28 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
2 Oct after 29.4 °C 21 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 33

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 12 Sept 2020
After · 29 Sept 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 · 0Every 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 Iran ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Pol-e-Dokhtar fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 19 September 2020 and 22 September 2020: 4 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 2,610 hectares (26.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Pol-e-Dokhtar (2,613 ha, 0.7 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 35.1 °C, humidity dropped to 9 % and gusts hit 41 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 Iran (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: 125

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 125.

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.