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Poli fire, 22 January 2016 Poli

Out · last detection 30 Jan 2016, 12:49 UTC

The fire started on 22 January 2016 in Poli, Cameroon, and satellites saw it burning for 9 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,796 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 39th largest in North since 2016 (of 1648 with a page). Number 6 in Cameroon in 2016, of 304.

The power measured by the satellite is low (28.8 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
4,796ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
9days
22 Jan 2016 – 30 Jan 2016
Municipalities hit
1
communes
Started on
22 Jan
2016
Heat detections
125
in a single hotspot: 29 MW
Danger at start
44
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
655MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

30 Jan 2016
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 22 Jan30 Jan

How it evolved, day by day

2223242627282930

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

The weather it burned in

32°high
34km/h · peak gust
14%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
    4,823 ha reached on 16 Jan
    0.5 %

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)
22 Jan 32.4 °C 15 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
23 Jan 31.3 °C 14 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
24 Jan 29.1 °C 15 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
25 Jan 28.5 °C 18 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
26 Jan 29.0 °C 19 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
27 Jan 28.4 °C 18 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
28 Jan 28.0 °C 18 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
29 Jan 28.9 °C 17 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
30 Jan 29.2 °C 18 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
31 Jan after 30.1 °C 17 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
1 Feb after 31.6 °C 17 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
2 Feb after 33.8 °C 16 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
3 Feb after 35.0 °C 16 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
4 Feb after 34.9 °C 15 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
5 Feb after 33.7 °C 13 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
6 Feb after 32.7 °C 17 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
7 Feb after 32.8 °C 17 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
8 Feb after 32.6 °C 17 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
9 Feb after 31.1 °C 17 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 15 Jan 2016
After · 6 Feb 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 · 125Every 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 22 January 2016 and 30 January 2016: 9 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 4,796 hectares (48.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Poli (4,823 ha, 0.5 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 32.4 °C, humidity dropped to 14 % and gusts hit 34 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 44, 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.