Skip to content
worldfires
TG · Togo · →

Sotouboua fire, December 2018 Sotouboua, Bassar

Out · last detection 23 Dec 2018, 13:51 UTC

The fire started on 10 December 2018 in Sotouboua, Togo, and satellites saw it burning for 14 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,627 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 13th largest in Centrale since 2016 (of 119 with a page). Number 2 in Togo in 2018, of 19.

Burnt area
2,627ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
14days
10 Dec 2018 – 23 Dec 2018
Municipalities hit
2
prefectures
Started on
10 Dec
2018
Heat detections
67
in a single hotspot: 104 MW
Energy released
1.4GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

23 Dec 2018
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 10 Dec23 Dec

How it evolved, day by day

10121516172123

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

This area had burned before

23% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 447 ha in 2016, 165 ha in 2017.

What happened to each town

  1. Sotouboua where it started
    2,638 ha reached on 10 Dec
    0.8 %
  2. Bassar
    7 ha reached on 10 Dec
    0.0 %

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.

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 3 Dec 2018
After · 30 Dec 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 · 67Every 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 Togo ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Sotouboua fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 10 December 2018 to 23 December 2018 (14 days). The perimeter dates it from 12 December 2018 to 17 December 2018.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 2,627 hectares (26.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Sotouboua (2,638 ha, 0.8 %); Bassar (7 ha, 0.0 %).
Where does this data come from?
From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Togo (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.

Report an error
What do you think is wrong?

We will only use your email to reply about this report. Privacy.

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-ShareAlike 2.0). 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.