Fire near Huila (AO)

15.58°S, 15.41°E · first detected on 22 October at 12:32

What the satellites measured

This fire was tracked from 22 October at 12:32 to 23 October at 02:05, through 78 satellite detections. The detected extent reaches 1,251 ha.

Detected extent: 1,251 ha
Cumulative power: 3,766 MW
Peak power, one pixel: 243 MW
VIIRS and MODIS detections: 78

These four figures cover the polar orbits alone, the ones that measure an area. The pass table below also counts geostationary detections, more frequent but too coarse for geometry, and its power column sums a whole pass where the peak above is that of a single pixel.

“Detected extent” is not “burned area”: it is the union of the ground footprints of the satellite pixels, and a pixel counts in full (375 m for VIIRS, 1 km for MODIS) even when only a forest edge is burning. Compared with press figures it is in practice one and a half to three times the area reported. Detections taken at the edge of the scan swath, too coarse to measure anything at all, are excluded. These figures come from thermal detection and are not an official assessment: only the emergency services and the competent authorities are authoritative.

Replay how the fire spread

The map is framed on this fire's footprint and loads only its detections. The timeline below covers the period in which satellites saw it, from the first to the last detection, with twelve hours before and twenty-four after; the ticks on the bar mark the emergency services' announcements that fall within it. The cursor opens on the most powerful pass, and playback replays the whole fire in about thirty seconds. “1 h” shows what is burning within an hour of the chosen moment : the map then follows the power curve below and empties when it falls. “24 h” stacks twenty-four hours : a fire stays visible between two satellite passes, which come two to four times a day. Both are true, but they say different things.

How the radiative power evolved

One point per satellite pass: the sum of the fire radiative power measured over the fire. This is the curve that says whether the fire eased off or picked up again, which no cumulative figure shows. The window covers 3 days; beyond that, clustering would merge two successive fires in the same place.

Fire dynamics

Loading history…

Satellite passes in detail

Pass	Power summed over the pass	Detections	Sensor
23 October at 02:39	5 MW	2	N
23 October at 02:05	5 MW	1	N21
22 October at 16:19	34 MW	1	Met10
22 October at 16:04	35 MW	1	Met9
22 October at 16:04	49 MW	1	Met10
22 October at 15:52	79 MW	2	Met12
22 October at 15:49	60 MW	1	Met9
22 October at 15:49	54 MW	1	Met10
22 October at 15:42	70 MW	3	Met12
22 October at 15:34	61 MW	1	Met10
22 October at 15:34	70 MW	1	Met9
22 October at 15:31	42 MW	6	N
22 October at 15:22	18 MW	1	Met12
22 October at 15:19	81 MW	1	Met10
22 October at 15:19	166 MW	3	Met9
22 October at 15:12	15 MW	1	Met12
22 October at 15:04	364 MW	3	Met10
22 October at 15:04	428 MW	4	Met9
22 October at 15:02	359 MW	10	Met12
22 October at 14:53	198 MW	14	N21
22 October at 14:52	231 MW	9	Met12
22 October at 14:49	322 MW	3	Met10
22 October at 14:49	435 MW	4	Met9
22 October at 14:42	294 MW	8	Met12
22 October at 14:34	1,007 MW	4	Met9
22 October at 14:34	964 MW	5	Met10
22 October at 14:32	917 MW	13	Met12
22 October at 14:22	2,542 MW	13	Met12
22 October at 14:19	651 MW	4	Met10
22 October at 14:19	871 MW	4	Met9
22 October at 14:12	1,989 MW	13	Met12
22 October at 14:10	2,047 MW	30	N20
22 October at 14:04	1,429 MW	4	Met9
22 October at 14:04	1,105 MW	7	Met10
22 October at 14:02	2,060 MW	15	Met12
22 October at 13:52	1,548 MW	12	Met12
22 October at 13:49	1,474 MW	27	N
22 October at 13:49	1,085 MW	4	Met9
22 October at 13:49	674 MW	5	Met10
22 October at 13:42	1,592 MW	12	Met12
22 October at 13:34	555 MW	5	Met10
22 October at 13:34	839 MW	4	Met9
22 October at 13:32	640 MW	11	Met12
22 October at 13:22	915 MW	12	Met12
22 October at 13:19	1,173 MW	4	Met9
22 October at 13:19	788 MW	5	Met10
22 October at 13:12	583 MW	8	Met12
22 October at 13:04	427 MW	4	Met9
22 October at 13:04	335 MW	3	Met10
22 October at 13:02	221 MW	5	Met12
22 October at 12:52	40 MW	2	Met12
22 October at 12:42	105 MW	3	Met12
22 October at 12:34	39 MW	1	Met10
22 October at 12:32	67 MW	3	Met12

8 other fires near Huila (AO)

Separate fires, apart in time or in space, not pieces of this one. A single municipality can have several over one summer, and a forest massif often covers more than a hundred square kilometres.

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