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Poli fire, 6 December 2022 Poli

Out · last detection 12 Dec 2022, 01:18 UTC

The fire started on 6 December 2022 in Poli, Cameroon, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,932 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 65th largest in North since 2016 (of 1648 with a page). Number 11 in Cameroon in 2022, of 201.

Burnt area
3,932ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
6days
6 Dec 2022 – 11 Dec 2022
Municipalities hit
1
communes
Started on
6 Dec
2022
Heat detections
137
in a single hotspot: 52 MW
Danger at start
37
High · FWI index
Energy released
1.0GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

12 Dec 2022
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 6 Dec11 Dec

How it evolved, day by day

6789101112

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
28km/h · peak gust
18%lowest humidity

It had gone 43 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

97% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 3,430 ha in 2016, 2,581 ha in 2017, 1,649 ha in 2018, 1,681 ha in 2019, 80 ha in 2021. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 3,832 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Poli where it started
    3,955 ha reached on 5 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)
6 Dec 35.2 °C 18 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
7 Dec 34.0 °C 19 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
8 Dec 32.7 °C 18 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
9 Dec 33.2 °C 18 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
10 Dec 34.1 °C 18 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
11 Dec 34.9 °C 20 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
12 Dec after 35.4 °C 13 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
13 Dec after 35.4 °C 12 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
14 Dec after 34.9 °C 18 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
15 Dec after 34.7 °C 18 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
16 Dec after 34.4 °C 19 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
17 Dec after 34.3 °C 18 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
18 Dec after 34.1 °C 20 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
19 Dec after 33.1 °C 20 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
20 Dec after 33.3 °C 20 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
21 Dec after 32.1 °C 22 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm High 37

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 29 Nov 2022
After · 18 Dec 2022

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 · 137Every 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 6 December 2022 and 11 December 2022: 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 3,932 hectares (39.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Poli (3,955 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 35.2 °C, humidity dropped to 18 % and gusts hit 28 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 38, 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.