Fire near Vakaga (CF)

10.55°N, 22.95°E · first detected on 22 October at 10:56

What the satellites measured

This fire was tracked from 22 October at 10:56 to 22 October at 14:19, through 34 satellite detections. The detected extent reaches 466 ha.

Detected extent: 466 ha
Cumulative power: 361 MW
Peak power, one pixel: 45 MW
VIIRS and MODIS detections: 34

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
22 October at 16:08	51 MW	1	Met9
22 October at 16:07	88 MW	2	Met10
22 October at 16:05	14 MW	1	Met12
22 October at 15:55	13 MW	1	Met12
22 October at 15:37	32 MW	1	Met10
22 October at 15:25	12 MW	1	Met12
22 October at 15:05	11 MW	1	Met12
22 October at 14:22	43 MW	1	Met9
22 October at 14:19	56 MW	11	N20
22 October at 14:15	33 MW	2	Met12
22 October at 14:07	165 MW	3	Met10
22 October at 14:07	201 MW	4	Met9
22 October at 13:57	83 MW	13	N
22 October at 13:52	78 MW	1	Met10
22 October at 13:52	212 MW	4	Met9
22 October at 13:45	281 MW	10	Met12
22 October at 13:37	99 MW	2	Met10
22 October at 13:37	141 MW	3	Met9
22 October at 13:35	45 MW	2	Met12
22 October at 13:25	145 MW	4	Met12
22 October at 13:22	151 MW	2	Met10
22 October at 13:22	252 MW	4	Met9
22 October at 13:19	260 MW	16	N21
22 October at 13:15	533 MW	9	Met12
22 October at 13:07	1,364 MW	6	Met9
22 October at 13:07	862 MW	5	Met10
22 October at 13:05	1,003 MW	10	Met12
22 October at 12:55	241 MW	6	Met12
22 October at 12:52	47 MW	1	Met10
22 October at 12:52	130 MW	3	Met9
22 October at 12:45	168 MW	6	Met12
22 October at 12:37	198 MW	2	Met10
22 October at 12:37	244 MW	3	Met9
22 October at 12:35	188 MW	6	Met12
22 October at 12:25	24 MW	1	Met12
22 October at 12:22	297 MW	4	Met9
22 October at 12:22	212 MW	3	Met10
22 October at 12:15	152 MW	4	Met12
22 October at 12:07	142 MW	2	Met9
22 October at 12:07	144 MW	2	Met10
22 October at 12:05	139 MW	5	Met12
22 October at 11:45	65 MW	2	Met12
22 October at 11:26	11 MW	1	Met12
22 October at 11:15	42 MW	3	Met12
22 October at 10:56	10 MW	1	Met12

8 other fires near Vakaga (CF)

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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