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GW · Guinea-Bissau · →

Quebo fire, April 2016 Quebo, Buba

Out · last detection 20 May 2016, 14:50 UTC

The fire started on 28 April 2016 in Quebo, Guinea-Bissau, and satellites saw it burning for 23 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,676 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 2th largest in Tombali since 2016 (of 18 with a page). Number 3 in Guinea-Bissau in 2016, of 46.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Buba · 2018Quebo · 2016Cacine · 2020Sansalé · 2016

Burnt area
5,676ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
23days
28 Apr 2016 – 20 May 2016
Municipalities hit
2
sectors
Started on
28 Apr
2016
Heat detections
187
in a single hotspot: 281 MW
Danger at start
33
High · FWI index
Average daily power
336MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 28 Apr20 May
20 May 2016

How it evolved, day by day

28 Apr 2016 · 113 MW · 8 29 Apr 2016 · 0 MW · 1 30 Apr 2016 · 2 MW · 2 3 May 2016 · 59 MW · 2 5 May 2016 · 942 MW · 34 8 May 2016 · 51 MW · 3 9 May 2016 · 96 MW · 6 10 May 2016 · 117 MW · 12 11 May 2016 · 6 MW · 2 12 May 2016 · 2,951 MW · 67 13 May 2016 · 3 MW · 4 14 May 2016 · 53 MW · 11 15 May 2016 · 146 MW · 12 17 May 2016 · 563 MW · 13 18 May 2016 · 29 MW · 3 20 May 2016 · 241 MW · 7
28 Apr 3 May 9 May 12 May 15 May 20 May

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

The weather it burned in

39°high
40km/h · peak gust
28%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 4.1 mm on 27 May.

This area had burned before

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

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 3.6% of the area of London (57 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each town

  1. Quebo where it started
    4,046 ha reached on 28 Apr
    3.8 %
  2. Buba
    1,665 ha reached on 28 Apr
    2.1 %

Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance runs from the point marking the centre of each area 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 Apr 35.6 °C 38 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
29 Apr 37.3 °C 33 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
30 Apr 38.3 °C 31 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
1 May 38.7 °C 33 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
2 May 34.1 °C 46 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
3 May 34.8 °C 41 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
4 May 34.8 °C 43 % 28 km/h 0.5 mm High 30
5 May 37.7 °C 34 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
6 May 35.1 °C 41 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
7 May 35.1 °C 37 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
8 May 36.3 °C 32 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
9 May 37.7 °C 32 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
10 May 38.2 °C 30 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
11 May 39.2 °C 28 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
12 May 39.1 °C 30 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
13 May 35.8 °C 42 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
14 May 35.1 °C 43 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
15 May 35.0 °C 46 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
16 May 34.2 °C 50 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
17 May 36.4 °C 30 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
18 May 36.4 °C 40 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
19 May 34.5 °C 50 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
20 May 34.5 °C 51 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
21 May after 33.9 °C 39 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
22 May after 35.0 °C 40 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
23 May after 35.9 °C 35 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
24 May after 34.9 °C 33 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
25 May after 34.2 °C 45 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
26 May after 31.7 °C 46 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
27 May after 35.5 °C 47 % 29 km/h 4.1 mm Low 10

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 21 Apr 2016
After · 27 May 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 · 187Every 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 Guinea-Bissau ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Quebo fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 28 April 2016 to 20 May 2016 (23 days). The perimeter dates it from 3 May 2016 to 15 May 2016.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 5,676 hectares (56.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Quebo (4,046 ha, 3.8 %); Buba (1,665 ha, 2.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 39.2 °C, humidity dropped to 28 % and gusts hit 40 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 Guinea-Bissau (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

History of this page Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.

No changes since 24 October 2026.

RSS Changes to this page

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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How we know this
  • Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery; 2 polygons grouped in this page.
  • Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 3 May 2016 to 15 May 2016. 187 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
  • We have not matched this page with any official record.
  • Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.

How we build fire pages: methodology ›

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 ADM2 (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.