Fire near Kirkouk (IQ)

35.69°N, 43.88°E · first detected on 8 August at 00:31

What the satellites measured

This fire was tracked from 8 August at 00:31 to 13 August at 12:53, that is 6 days, through 123 satellite detections. The detected extent reaches 831 ha.

Detected extent: 831 ha
Cumulative power: 4,110 MW
Peak power, one pixel: 106 MW
VIIRS and MODIS detections: 123

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 375 m pixel counts in full 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 and loads only its detections. The timeline below covers the whole known life of the fire, from the first trace, satellite or report, to the last announcement from emergency services, and the ticks on the bar mark those announcements. Detections often stop before containment: a fire stops radiating once it stops spreading, which is exactly when it is declared contained. “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. “12 h” stacks twelve hours , as the home map does, where stacking avoids an empty screen between two satellite passes. 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 8 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
13 August at 12:53	71 MW	2	N20
13 August at 12:34	102 MW	1	N
13 August at 11:58	103 MW	2	N21
13 August at 11:13	63 MW	2	N20
13 August at 08:46	106 MW	1	Terra
13 August at 01:33	79 MW	2	N20
13 August at 00:37	70 MW	2	N21
12 August at 19:09	96 MW	2	Terra
12 August at 11:13	25 MW	2	N
12 August at 08:10	68 MW	2	Terra
12 August at 03:09	28 MW	2	Aqua
12 August at 01:33	46 MW	1	N
12 August at 00:59	67 MW	2	N21
12 August at 00:12	139 MW	6	N20
11 August at 20:09	152 MW	3	Terra
11 August at 13:32	100 MW	1	Aqua
11 August at 13:13	107 MW	4	N
11 August at 11:32	81 MW	3	N
11 August at 10:56	127 MW	3	N21
11 August at 02:30	31 MW	1	Aqua
11 August at 01:16	6 MW	1	N21
11 August at 00:12	89 MW	5	N
10 August at 19:30	54 MW	2	Terra
10 August at 12:56	131 MW	3	N21
10 August at 12:11	70 MW	2	N20
10 August at 11:49	81 MW	2	N
10 August at 11:15	87 MW	3	N21
10 August at 03:30	82 MW	2	Aqua
10 August at 02:09	58 MW	4	N
10 August at 01:35	57 MW	2	N21
10 August at 00:50	62 MW	4	N20
10 August at 00:29	66 MW	5	N
9 August at 23:53	160 MW	4	N21
9 August at 18:52	129 MW	2	Terra
9 August at 12:11	70 MW	2	N
9 August at 02:52	73 MW	2	Aqua
9 August at 01:54	60 MW	2	N21
9 August at 01:07	71 MW	1	N20
9 August at 00:50	58 MW	2	N
9 August at 00:14	50 MW	1	N21
8 August at 19:49	72 MW	2	Terra
8 August at 12:28	76 MW	7	N
8 August at 11:07	149 MW	4	N20
8 August at 08:48	83 MW	2	Terra
8 August at 03:52	171 MW	3	Aqua
8 August at 02:13	166 MW	2	Aqua
8 August at 01:29	79 MW	3	N20
8 August at 01:07	65 MW	2	N
8 August at 00:31	77 MW	3	N21
7 August at 19:11	73 MW	3	Terra
7 August at 14:14	60 MW	1	Aqua
7 August at 13:06	57 MW	4	N20
7 August at 12:47	148 MW	2	N
7 August at 12:13	89 MW	8	N21
7 August at 11:26	80 MW	2	N20
7 August at 11:07	56 MW	2	N
7 August at 08:10	71 MW	2	Terra
7 August at 03:13	154 MW	4	Aqua
7 August at 01:46	134 MW	8	N20
7 August at 01:29	83 MW	3	N
7 August at 00:52	68 MW	3	N21
7 August at 00:05	44 MW	4	N20
6 August at 20:09	100 MW	2	Terra
6 August at 13:36	84 MW	1	Aqua
6 August at 13:06	68 MW	3	N

7 other fires near Kirkouk (IQ)

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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