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Thionthian fire, 11 April 2017 Thionthian

Out · last detection 18 Apr 2017, 14:04 UTC

The fire started on 11 April 2017 in Thionthian, Guinea, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,630 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 72th largest in Kindia since 2016 (of 242 with a page). Number 47 in Guinea in 2017, of 172.

Burnt area
3,630ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
7days
11 Apr 2017 – 17 Apr 2017
Municipalities hit
1
sub-prefectures
Started on
11 Apr
2017
Heat detections
90
in a single hotspot: 433 MW
Danger at start
27
High · FWI index
Energy released
4.2GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

18 Apr 2017
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 11 Apr17 Apr

How it evolved, day by day

11121315161718

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
35km/h · peak gust
22%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

1% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 47 ha in 2016.

What happened to each town

  1. Thionthian where it started
    3,652 ha reached on 11 Apr
    5.7 %

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)
11 Apr 37.6 °C 32 % 31 km/h 0.8 mm High 27
12 Apr 36.5 °C 30 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
13 Apr 37.7 °C 22 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
14 Apr 36.8 °C 24 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
15 Apr 37.0 °C 26 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
16 Apr 37.5 °C 26 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
17 Apr 37.0 °C 27 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
18 Apr after 38.9 °C 23 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
19 Apr after 38.5 °C 22 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
20 Apr after 36.4 °C 28 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
21 Apr after 37.6 °C 21 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
22 Apr after 35.9 °C 36 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
23 Apr after 35.8 °C 35 % 40 km/h 0.1 mm Very high 40
24 Apr after 36.3 °C 31 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
25 Apr after 38.1 °C 21 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
26 Apr after 38.2 °C 25 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
27 Apr after 36.6 °C 37 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 37

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 4 Apr 2017
After · 24 Apr 2017

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 · 90Every 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 Thionthian fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 11 April 2017 and 17 April 2017: 7 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 3,630 hectares (36.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Thionthian (3,652 ha, 5.7 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.7 °C, humidity dropped to 22 % and gusts hit 35 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 41, 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.