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Tesker fire, October 2018 Tesker

Out · last detection 17 Oct 2018, 13:08 UTC

The fire started on 17 October 2018 in Tesker, Niger, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,595 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 10th largest in Zinder since 2016 (of 103 with a page). Number 2 in Niger in 2018, of 19.

Burnt area
3,595ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
1day
17 Oct 2018 – 17 Oct 2018
Municipalities hit
1
communes
Started on
17 Oct
2018
Heat detections
132
in a single hotspot: 45 MW
Danger at start
72
Very extreme · FWI index
Energy released
1.9GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 17 Oct17 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

17

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

The weather it burned in

40°high
45km/h · peak gust
10%lowest humidity

It had gone 32 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

4% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 128 ha in 2016.

What happened to each town

  1. Tesker where it started
    3,596 ha reached on 17 Oct
    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.

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)
17 Oct 40.3 °C 10 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 72
18 Oct after 39.6 °C 8 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 67
19 Oct after 39.2 °C 8 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 74
20 Oct after 38.6 °C 7 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 76
21 Oct after 39.2 °C 4 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 79
22 Oct after 40.6 °C 8 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 83
23 Oct after 40.1 °C 8 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 68
24 Oct after 40.1 °C 4 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 66
25 Oct after 39.4 °C 12 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
26 Oct after 38.3 °C 21 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
27 Oct after 38.2 °C 27 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 10 Oct 2018
After · 24 Oct 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 · 132Every 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 Niger ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Tesker fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 17 October 2018 and 17 October 2018: 1 day 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 3,595 hectares (36.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Tesker (3,596 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 40.3 °C, humidity dropped to 10 % and gusts hit 45 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 72, class Very extreme.
Where does this data come from?
From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Niger (OCHA COD-AB). 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 OCHA COD-AB (IGNN) (Creative Commons Attribution for Intergovernmental Organisations (CC BY-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.