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Toliary-II fire, 9 October 2021 Toliary-II

Out · last detection 18 Oct 2021, 10:07 UTC

The fire started on 9 October 2021 in Toliary-II, Madagascar, and satellites saw it burning for 10 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,209 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 22th largest in Atsimo-Andrefana since 2016 (of 45 with a page). Number 7 in Madagascar in 2021, of 34.

Burnt area
5,209ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
10days
9 Oct 2021 – 18 Oct 2021
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
9 Oct
2021
Heat detections
331
in a single hotspot: 93 MW
Danger at start
35
High · FWI index
Energy released
2.8GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

18 Oct 2021
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 9 Oct18 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

910121314151618

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

The weather it burned in

36°high
52km/h · peak gust
23%lowest humidity

It had gone 5 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

96% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 3,667 ha in 2016, 6,240 ha in 2017, 4,610 ha in 2019, 4,447 ha in 2020. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 5,016 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Toliary-II where it started
    5,222 ha reached on 7 Oct
    0.5 %

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 28.9 °C 32 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
10 Oct 27.9 °C 48 % 36 km/h 0.4 mm High 27
11 Oct 26.6 °C 43 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
12 Oct 30.1 °C 33 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
13 Oct 31.5 °C 29 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
14 Oct 34.7 °C 25 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
15 Oct 35.5 °C 23 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
16 Oct 32.8 °C 29 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
17 Oct 29.9 °C 44 % 36 km/h 0.3 mm High 30
18 Oct 29.8 °C 39 % 40 km/h 0.1 mm High 31
19 Oct after 27.5 °C 50 % 47 km/h 0.3 mm High 30
20 Oct after 29.5 °C 42 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
21 Oct after 25.7 °C 49 % 44 km/h 0.2 mm High 30
22 Oct after 27.0 °C 30 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
23 Oct after 29.5 °C 26 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
24 Oct after 30.9 °C 24 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
25 Oct after 32.8 °C 26 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
26 Oct after 32.1 °C 39 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
27 Oct after 27.3 °C 56 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
28 Oct after 27.0 °C 30 % 58 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 2 Oct 2021
After · 25 Oct 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 · 331Every 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 2021 and 18 October 2021: 10 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 5,209 hectares (52.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Toliary-II (5,222 ha, 0.5 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 35.5 °C, humidity dropped to 23 % and gusts hit 52 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 40, 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.