Tongod fire, 20 March 2016 Tongod
The fire started on 20 March 2016 in Tongod, Malaysia, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 949 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 25th largest in Sabah since 2016 (of 106 with a page). Number 40 in Malaysia in 2016, of 104.
The power measured by the satellite is low (19.2 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.
- Burnt area
- 949ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 4days
- 20 Mar 2016 – 23 Mar 2016
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- districts
- Started on
- 20 Mar
- 2016
- Heat detections
- 40
- in a single hotspot: 19 MW
- Danger at start
- 17
- Moderate · FWI index
- Energy released
- 150MW
- sum of detected power
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone 4 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.1 mm on 24 Mar.
This area had burned before
No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.
What happened to each town
-
Tongod where it started955 ha reached on 19 Mar0.1 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 20 Mar | 34.7 °C | 40 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 17 |
| 21 Mar | 33.6 °C | 44 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 16 |
| 22 Mar | 33.5 °C | 44 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 18 |
| 23 Mar | 37.9 °C | 27 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 20 |
| 24 Mar after | 36.3 °C | 31 % | 27 km/h | 2.1 mm | Moderate 12 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
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 · 40Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 4,421 haTongod27 March 2016 · 8 days · 4 km away
- 1,565 haKeningau1 April 2016 · 8 days · 9 km away
- 1,056 haKeningau7 April 2016 · 2 days · 11 km away
- 934 haKeningau10 March 2016 · 4 days · 11 km away
- 1,168 haKeningau20 February 2016 · 8 days · 16 km away
- 1,879 haKeningau17 March 2016 · 8 days · 20 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Tongod fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 20 March 2016 and 23 March 2016: 4 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 949 hectares (9.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Tongod (955 ha, 0.1 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 37.9 °C, humidity dropped to 27 % and gusts hit 34 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 20, class Moderate.
- Where does this data come from?
- From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Malaysia (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.
Emergency number: 999
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.
Report an error
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 License). 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.