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Poli fire, 28 December 2016 Poli

Out · last detection 4 Jan 2017, 11:32 UTC

The fire started on 28 December 2016 in Poli, Cameroon, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,580 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 41th largest in North since 2016 (of 1648 with a page). Number 7 in Cameroon in 2016, of 304.

Burnt area
4,580ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
8days
28 Dec 2016 – 4 Jan 2017
Municipalities hit
1
communes
Started on
28 Dec
2016
Heat detections
165
in a single hotspot: 74 MW
Danger at start
43
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
2.3GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

4 Jan 2017
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 28 Dec4 Jan

How it evolved, day by day

29303134

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
27km/h · peak gust
15%lowest humidity

It had gone 58 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

20% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 991 ha in 2016. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 917 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Poli where it started
    4,607 ha reached on 29 Dec
    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)
28 Dec 31.6 °C 17 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
29 Dec 32.5 °C 17 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
30 Dec 34.2 °C 16 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
31 Dec 33.2 °C 17 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
1 Jan 32.5 °C 17 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
2 Jan 33.2 °C 18 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
3 Jan 33.4 °C 19 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
4 Jan 33.6 °C 15 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
5 Jan after 34.6 °C 14 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
6 Jan after 35.0 °C 14 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
7 Jan after 34.7 °C 14 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
8 Jan after 34.2 °C 9 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
9 Jan after 34.2 °C 14 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
10 Jan after 33.1 °C 13 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
11 Jan after 35.2 °C 14 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
12 Jan after 36.0 °C 13 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
13 Jan after 36.3 °C 14 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
14 Jan after 34.4 °C 15 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 21 Dec 2016
After · 11 Jan 2017

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 · 165Every 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 28 December 2016 and 4 January 2017: 8 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 4,580 hectares (45.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Poli (4,607 ha, 0.5 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 34.2 °C, humidity dropped to 15 % and gusts hit 27 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.