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Sangaréah fire, April 2018 Sangaréah

Out · last detection 1 May 2018, 14:17 UTC

The fire started on 23 April 2018 in Sangaréah, Guinea, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,896 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 9th largest in Mamou since 2016 (of 74 with a page). Number 25 in Guinea in 2018, of 107.

Burnt area
3,896ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
8days
23 Apr 2018 – 30 Apr 2018
Municipalities hit
1
sub-prefectures
Started on
23 Apr
2018
Heat detections
147
in a single hotspot: 273 MW
Danger at start
36
High · FWI index
Energy released
4.5GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

1 May 2018
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 23 Apr30 Apr

How it evolved, day by day

25262829301

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

The weather it burned in

38°high
37km/h · peak gust
24%lowest humidity

It had gone 11 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

31% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,205 ha in 2017.

What happened to each town

  1. Sangaréah where it started
    3,921 ha reached on 19 Apr
    3.0 %

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)
23 Apr 37.7 °C 26 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
24 Apr 36.8 °C 28 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
25 Apr 37.4 °C 25 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
26 Apr 35.2 °C 31 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
27 Apr 36.0 °C 37 % 29 km/h 0.3 mm High 33
28 Apr 38.5 °C 24 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
29 Apr 37.4 °C 27 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
30 Apr 37.2 °C 28 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
1 May after 35.4 °C 31 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
2 May after 37.3 °C 27 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
3 May after 36.2 °C 30 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
4 May after 36.0 °C 33 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
5 May after 34.6 °C 38 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
6 May after 36.6 °C 27 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
7 May after 35.6 °C 31 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
8 May after 38.0 °C 23 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
9 May after 35.1 °C 34 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
10 May after 36.5 °C 26 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 16 Apr 2018
After · 7 May 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 · 147Every 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 ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Sangaréah fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 23 April 2018 and 30 April 2018: 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 3,896 hectares (39.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Sangaréah (3,921 ha, 3.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 38.5 °C, humidity dropped to 24 % and gusts hit 37 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 42, 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 (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 (Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Intergovernmental Organisations (CC BY 3.0 IGO)). 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.