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Salas-e Babajani fire, July 2018 Salas-e Babajani

Out · last detection 15 Jul 2018, 09:13 UTC

The fire started on 12 July 2018 in Salas-e Babajani, Iran, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 1,967 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 8th largest in Kermanshah since 2016 (of 28 with a page). Number 3 in Iran in 2018, of 14.

Burnt area
1,967ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
3days
12 Jul 2018 – 14 Jul 2018
Municipalities hit
1
counties
Started on
12 Jul
2018
Heat detections
34
in a single hotspot: 0 MW
Danger at start
63
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
157MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

15 Jul 2018
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 12 Jul14 Jul

How it evolved, day by day

12131415

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

The weather it burned in

41°high
49km/h · peak gust
8%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

38% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 750 ha in 2016.

What happened to each town

  1. Salas-e Babajani where it started
    461 ha
    0.3 %

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)
12 Jul 41.3 °C 8 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 63
13 Jul 38.4 °C 11 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
14 Jul 35.1 °C 12 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
15 Jul after 34.7 °C 8 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
16 Jul after 34.1 °C 15 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
17 Jul after 34.9 °C 13 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
18 Jul after 37.3 °C 12 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
19 Jul after 36.5 °C 11 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
20 Jul after 36.5 °C 11 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
21 Jul after 34.8 °C 11 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
22 Jul after 34.1 °C 14 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
23 Jul after 33.8 °C 14 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
24 Jul after 35.4 °C 14 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 5 Jul 2018
After · 21 Jul 2018

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 · 0Every 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 Iran ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Salas-e Babajani fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 12 July 2018 and 14 July 2018: 3 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 1,967 hectares (19.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Salas-e Babajani (461 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 41.3 °C, humidity dropped to 8 % and gusts hit 49 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 63, class Extreme.
Where does this data come from?
From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Iran (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.

Emergency number: 125

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.

Report an error
What do you think is wrong?

We will only use your email to reply about this report. Privacy. This is not an emergency service: if there is a fire now, call 125.

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.