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CM · Cameroon · →

Poli fire, 1 January 2016 Poli

Out · last detection 5 Jan 2016, 12:18 UTC

The fire started on 1 January 2016 in Poli, Cameroon, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,163 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 121th largest in North since 2016 (of 1648 with a page). Number 23 in Cameroon in 2016, of 304.

Burnt area
3,163ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
5days
1 Jan 2016 – 5 Jan 2016
Municipalities hit
1
communes
Started on
1 Jan
2016
Heat detections
70
in a single hotspot: 54 MW
Danger at start
38
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
949MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

5 Jan 2016
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 1 Jan5 Jan

How it evolved, day by day

12345

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

The weather it burned in

34°high
28km/h · peak gust
17%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

What happened to each town

  1. Poli where it started
    3,184 ha reached on 1 Jan
    0.3 %

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)
1 Jan 31.7 °C 21 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
2 Jan 31.9 °C 20 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
3 Jan 31.8 °C 22 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
4 Jan 32.4 °C 19 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
5 Jan 33.5 °C 17 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
6 Jan after 35.2 °C 15 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
7 Jan after 36.0 °C 11 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
8 Jan after 38.0 °C 11 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
9 Jan after 36.3 °C 10 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
10 Jan after 35.7 °C 12 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
11 Jan after 35.4 °C 12 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
12 Jan after 35.0 °C 12 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
13 Jan after 33.8 °C 15 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
14 Jan after 34.2 °C 14 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
15 Jan after 35.3 °C 13 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 25 Dec 2015
After · 12 Jan 2016

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 · 70Every 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 Cameroon ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Poli fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 1 January 2016 and 5 January 2016: 5 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 3,163 hectares (31.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Poli (3,184 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 33.5 °C, humidity dropped to 17 % and gusts hit 28 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 40, class Very high.
Where does this data come from?
From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Cameroon (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 (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.