How long did the Atebubu Amantin fire last?

According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 4 January 2026 to 2 February 2026 (30 days). The perimeter dates it from 10 January 2026 to 28 January 2026.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 21,485 hectares (214.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 3 municipalities: Atebubu Amantin (16,138 ha, 6.1 %); Sene West (4,068 ha, 1.2 %); Pru East (1,425 ha, 0.9 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 37.7 °C, humidity dropped to 14 % and gusts hit 33 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 47, class Very high.

Where does this data come from?

From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Ghana (geoBoundaries). It is not an official report.

GH · Ghana · 2026-01-04 → 2026-02-02

Atebubu Amantin fire, 4 January 2026 Atebubu Amantin, Sene West, Pru East

Out · last detection 2 Feb 2026, 13:44 UTC

The fire started on 4 January 2026 in Atebubu Amantin, Ghana, and satellites saw it burning for 30 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 21,485 hectares from heat detections, spread across 3 municipalities.

It is the 9th largest in Bono East since 2016 (of 193 with a page). Number 4 in Ghana in 2026, of 179.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Atebubu Amantin · 2022 Atebubu Amantin · 2024 Atebubu Amantin · 2022 Sene West · 2026

Burnt area: 21,485ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 30days; 4 Jan 2026 – 2 Feb 2026
Municipalities hit: 3; districts
Started on: 4 Jan; 2026
Heat detections: 814; in a single hotspot: 71 MW
Danger at start: 30; High · FWI index
Average daily power: 229MW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 4 Jan2 Feb

Play back 2 Feb 2026

How it evolved, day by day

4 Jan 9 Jan 13 Jan 18 Jan 22 Jan 25 Jan 26 Jan 30 Jan

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

The weather it burned in

38°high

33km/h · peak gust

14%lowest humidity

It had gone 35 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.6 mm on 7 Feb.

This area had burned before

40% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,773 ha in 2018, 1,347 ha in 2020, 317 ha in 2021, 2,868 ha in 2022, 1,688 ha in 2023, 1,585 ha in 2024, 378 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 8,673 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

It burned the equivalent of 14% of the area of London (215 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each town

Atebubu Amantin where it started

16,138 ha reached on 4 Jan

6.1 %
Sene West

4,068 ha reached on 7 Jan

1.2 %
Pru East

1,425 ha reached on 13 Jan

0.9 %

Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance runs from the point marking the centre of each area to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.

People and buildings inside the perimeter

GHSL 2025

Built-up area10 ha

Residents≈ 1,100

Inside the perimeter there were about 10 hectares of built-up land and about 1,100 residents (GHSL 2025, satellite-based estimate).

This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned. The GHSL 2025 epoch is a projection made from 2020 and earlier data.

Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu

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)
4 Jan	36.1 °C	40 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
5 Jan	37.1 °C	39 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31
6 Jan	37.2 °C	39 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
7 Jan	36.9 °C	39 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31
8 Jan	34.3 °C	44 %	31 km/h	1.6 mm	Moderate 16
9 Jan	36.9 °C	34 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
10 Jan	36.4 °C	36 %	22 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
11 Jan	36.0 °C	31 %	22 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31
12 Jan	35.8 °C	37 %	18 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31
13 Jan	36.9 °C	35 %	19 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
14 Jan	35.7 °C	40 %	22 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31
15 Jan	35.8 °C	39 %	20 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31
16 Jan	36.2 °C	33 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
17 Jan	36.6 °C	33 %	17 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
18 Jan	36.7 °C	37 %	24 km/h	0.1 mm	High 32
19 Jan	37.7 °C	33 %	22 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
20 Jan	36.5 °C	36 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
21 Jan	35.0 °C	23 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
22 Jan	35.7 °C	19 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
23 Jan	36.0 °C	23 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
24 Jan	36.4 °C	20 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
25 Jan	36.4 °C	15 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 46
26 Jan	36.6 °C	14 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 46
27 Jan	37.2 °C	19 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 47
28 Jan	37.5 °C	28 %	17 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
29 Jan	37.3 °C	31 %	20 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
30 Jan	37.7 °C	27 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
31 Jan	37.7 °C	35 %	25 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
1 Feb	36.8 °C	40 %	28 km/h	0.2 mm	High 35
2 Feb	37.2 °C	44 %	26 km/h	0.6 mm	High 29
3 Feb after	36.6 °C	35 %	31 km/h	0.3 mm	High 32
4 Feb after	38.8 °C	25 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
5 Feb after	38.8 °C	25 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
6 Feb after	37.7 °C	35 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
7 Feb after	35.8 °C	47 %	28 km/h	1.6 mm	Moderate 18

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 28 Dec 2025

After · 9 Feb 2026

Before After

If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.

The smoke

CAMS · Copernicus

On 27 January 2026 the air beside the fire reached 148 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 91: 6.1 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak148 µg/m³

Days over the guideline24 days

PM10263 µg/m³

Optical depth1.36

WHO 15

8910111213141516171819202122232425262728293031

Good Fair Moderate Poor Very poor Extremely poor

Particles from the Copernicus CAMS model at the centre of the perimeter; these are not measurements in each town. The pale bar is the worst hour, the solid one the daily average.

Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS)

Detections table · 814Every 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 time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Ghana ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Atebubu Amantin fire last?: According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 4 January 2026 to 2 February 2026 (30 days). The perimeter dates it from 10 January 2026 to 28 January 2026.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 21,485 hectares (214.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 3 municipalities: Atebubu Amantin (16,138 ha, 6.1 %); Sene West (4,068 ha, 1.2 %); Pru East (1,425 ha, 0.9 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 37.7 °C, humidity dropped to 14 % and gusts hit 33 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 47, class Very high.
Where does this data come from?: From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Ghana (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: 112 · Emergency number and official warnings ›

Satellite cross-check

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

History of this page · 2 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.

27 October 2026 Last day with fire: 28 January 2026 → 2 February 2026.
27 October 2026 Start date: 10 January 2026 → 4 January 2026.

RSS Changes to this page

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

What do you think is wrong?

Dates or duration Place or towns Burned area Name It was not a wildfire Same fire as another page Something else

What really happened?

Your connection to the fire (optional) Email (optional)

We will only use your email to reply about this report. Privacy. This is not an emergency service: if there is a fire now, call 112.

How we know this

Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery; 5 polygons grouped in this page.
Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 10 January 2026 to 28 January 2026. 814 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
We have not matched this page with any official record.
Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2025, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.

How we build fire pages: methodology ›

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 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)). 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.

Where it burned