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Soalala fire, October 2018 Soalala

Out · last detection 25 Oct 2018, 10:28 UTC

The fire started on 22 October 2018 in Soalala, Madagascar, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,956 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 12th largest in Boeny since 2016 (of 41 with a page). Number 8 in Madagascar in 2018, of 48.

Burnt area
4,956ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
4days
22 Oct 2018 – 25 Oct 2018
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
22 Oct
2018
Heat detections
155
in a single hotspot: 165 MW
Danger at start
56
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
3.1GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

25 Oct 2018
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 22 Oct25 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

22232425

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
52km/h · peak gust
16%lowest humidity

It had gone 3 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.0 mm on 2 Nov.

This area had burned before

11% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 325 ha in 2016, 236 ha in 2017.

What happened to each town

  1. Soalala where it started
    4,970 ha reached on 22 Oct
    0.6 %

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)
22 Oct 33.3 °C 16 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
23 Oct 34.9 °C 32 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
24 Oct 34.9 °C 22 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
25 Oct 35.1 °C 23 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
26 Oct after 33.5 °C 35 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
27 Oct after 31.0 °C 41 % 31 km/h 0.2 mm High 31
28 Oct after 32.4 °C 37 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
29 Oct after 32.0 °C 29 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
30 Oct after 31.4 °C 34 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
31 Oct after 31.5 °C 32 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
1 Nov after 30.7 °C 50 % 34 km/h 0.6 mm High 26
2 Nov after 31.5 °C 56 % 34 km/h 1.0 mm Moderate 17

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 15 Oct 2018
After · 1 Nov 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 · 155Every 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 Madagascar ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Soalala fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 22 October 2018 and 25 October 2018: 4 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 4,956 hectares (49.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Soalala (4,970 ha, 0.6 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 35.1 °C, humidity dropped to 16 % and gusts hit 52 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 56, class Extreme.
Where does this data come from?
From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Madagascar (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 ADM2 (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.