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CM · Cameroon · →

Poli fire, 10 December 2017 Poli

Out · last detection 15 Dec 2017, 00:59 UTC

The fire started on 10 December 2017 in Poli, Cameroon, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,472 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 92th largest in North since 2016 (of 1648 with a page). Number 16 in Cameroon in 2017, of 294.

Burnt area
3,472ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
6days
10 Dec 2017 – 15 Dec 2017
Municipalities hit
1
communes
Started on
10 Dec
2017
Heat detections
104
in a single hotspot: 104 MW
Danger at start
38
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
1.4GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

15 Dec 2017
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 10 Dec15 Dec

How it evolved, day by day

101112131415

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

The weather it burned in

36°high
36km/h · peak gust
17%lowest humidity

It had gone 38 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

6% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 193 ha in 2016.

What happened to each town

  1. Poli where it started
    3,493 ha reached on 9 Dec
    0.4 %

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)
10 Dec 32.6 °C 24 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
11 Dec 33.4 °C 23 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
12 Dec 34.0 °C 23 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
13 Dec 35.4 °C 20 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
14 Dec 36.4 °C 17 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
15 Dec 34.7 °C 19 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
16 Dec after 34.5 °C 18 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
17 Dec after 34.9 °C 21 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
18 Dec after 35.9 °C 20 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
19 Dec after 35.4 °C 20 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
20 Dec after 36.1 °C 18 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
21 Dec after 37.4 °C 17 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
22 Dec after 36.3 °C 15 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
23 Dec after 35.0 °C 20 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
24 Dec after 32.5 °C 21 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
25 Dec after 31.5 °C 26 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 3 Dec 2017
After · 22 Dec 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 · 104Every 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 10 December 2017 and 15 December 2017: 6 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 3,472 hectares (34.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Poli (3,493 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.4 °C, humidity dropped to 17 % and gusts hit 36 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 43, 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.