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CM · Cameroon · →

Tabati fire, 1 February 2021 Tabati

Out · last detection 6 Feb 2021, 12:59 UTC

The fire started on 1 February 2021 in Tabati, Cameroon, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,019 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 16th largest in Adamaoua since 2016 (of 233 with a page). Number 31 in Cameroon in 2021, of 293.

Burnt area
3,019ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
6days
1 Feb 2021 – 6 Feb 2021
Municipalities hit
1
communes
Started on
1 Feb
2021
Heat detections
63
in a single hotspot: 36 MW
Danger at start
39
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
544MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

6 Feb 2021
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 1 Feb6 Feb

How it evolved, day by day

123456

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
27km/h · peak gust
15%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

51% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 870 ha in 2016, 1,032 ha in 2020. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,534 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Tabati where it started
    3,037 ha reached on 1 Feb
    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)
1 Feb 33.8 °C 18 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
2 Feb 32.5 °C 16 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
3 Feb 34.7 °C 15 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
4 Feb 31.8 °C 16 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
5 Feb 33.2 °C 15 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
6 Feb 33.0 °C 19 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
7 Feb after 33.4 °C 17 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
8 Feb after 33.8 °C 16 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
9 Feb after 33.9 °C 12 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
10 Feb after 32.5 °C 13 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
11 Feb after 33.2 °C 10 % 17 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
12 Feb after 34.0 °C 8 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
13 Feb after 34.8 °C 13 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
14 Feb after 34.3 °C 12 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
15 Feb after 33.4 °C 14 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
16 Feb after 34.7 °C 13 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 25 Jan 2021
After · 13 Feb 2021

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 · 63Every 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 Cameroon ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Tabati fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 1 February 2021 and 6 February 2021: 6 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 3,019 hectares (30.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Tabati (3,037 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 34.7 °C, humidity dropped to 15 % and gusts hit 27 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 45, class Very high.
Where does this data come from?
From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Cameroon (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 (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.