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Toliary-II fire, 9 October 2016 Toliary-II

Out · last detection 3 Nov 2016, 21:58 UTC

The fire started on 9 October 2016 in Toliary-II, Madagascar, and satellites saw it burning for 26 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 7,724 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 14th largest in Atsimo-Andrefana since 2016 (of 45 with a page). Number 5 in Madagascar in 2016, of 59.

Burnt area
7,724ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
26days
9 Oct 2016 – 3 Nov 2016
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
9 Oct
2016
Heat detections
945
in a single hotspot: 139 MW
Danger at start
29
High · FWI index
Energy released
9.3GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

3 Nov 2016
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 9 Oct3 Nov

How it evolved, day by day

91011121314151617181920212324262728293031123

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

The weather it burned in

34°high
46km/h · peak gust
25%lowest humidity

It had gone 3 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 3.1 mm on 4 Nov.

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

What happened to each town

  1. Toliary-II where it started
    7,752 ha reached on 9 Oct
    0.8 %

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)
9 Oct 33.3 °C 25 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
10 Oct 32.0 °C 28 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
11 Oct 32.0 °C 28 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
12 Oct 33.4 °C 28 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
13 Oct 32.3 °C 33 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
14 Oct 29.8 °C 37 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
15 Oct 31.0 °C 30 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
16 Oct 32.8 °C 31 % 36 km/h 0.1 mm High 29
17 Oct 31.1 °C 34 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
18 Oct 30.8 °C 31 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
19 Oct 33.4 °C 33 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
20 Oct 33.0 °C 34 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
21 Oct 32.1 °C 39 % 46 km/h 0.1 mm High 35
22 Oct 30.5 °C 40 % 38 km/h 1.3 mm Moderate 19
23 Oct 32.8 °C 39 % 33 km/h 2.4 mm Moderate 14
24 Oct 31.7 °C 36 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
25 Oct 33.1 °C 35 % 36 km/h 2.9 mm Moderate 11
26 Oct 31.2 °C 37 % 35 km/h 1.8 mm Moderate 14
27 Oct 32.0 °C 31 % 37 km/h 0.3 mm High 27
28 Oct 31.7 °C 29 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
29 Oct 30.9 °C 30 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
30 Oct 32.9 °C 32 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
31 Oct 33.8 °C 25 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
1 Nov 33.1 °C 29 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
2 Nov 32.7 °C 34 % 44 km/h 0.1 mm Very high 39
3 Nov 32.3 °C 33 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
4 Nov after 33.1 °C 33 % 38 km/h 3.1 mm Moderate 16

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 2 Oct 2016
After · 10 Nov 2016

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 · 945Every 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 Toliary-II fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 9 October 2016 and 3 November 2016: 26 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 7,724 hectares (77.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Toliary-II (7,752 ha, 0.8 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 33.8 °C, humidity dropped to 25 % and gusts hit 46 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 39, class Very high.
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.