Burned area
satellite only2,053ha
Perimeter published by GWIS (Copernicus).
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus)
- Date
- 2 Mar 2024 – 10 Mar 2024
+− cross-check
No official record is matched to this page to compare it with.
GN · Guinea · –
Balizia fire, March 2024 Balizia, Bofossou
Out · last detection 10 Mar 2024, 13:51 UTC
The fire started on 2 March 2024 in Balizia, Guinea, and satellites saw it burning for 9 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,053 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 179th largest in Nzérékoré since 2016 (of 200 with a page). Number 113 in Guinea in 2024, of 118.
Use this data
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Use this data
Fire page data · version 2026-11-01matches the official recordwith caveatssatellite onlymodel
When copying, the sentence is
Tick the figures you want: they make up the lede and the CSV.
Duration by satellite
satellite only9days
2 Mar 2024 to 10 Mar 2024: first and last day with fire on the page.
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
- Date
- last detection: 10 Mar 2024, 13:51 UTC
+− cross-check
Satellites pass a few times a day and cloud or smoke can hide the fire: a lack of detections is not an official extinction. Each country’s emergency service declares a fire contained or out.
Start
satellite only2 Mar 2024
First day with fire seen by the satellites or the perimeter.
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
- Date
- 2 Mar 2024
+− cross-check
No official record is matched to this page, so the alert time and the cause are not known here.
The worst day
satellite only713MW
Total radiative power on 9 March 2024; hotspots that day: 20.
- Source
- NASA FIRMS · VIIRS (FRP)
- Date
- 9 Mar 2024
+− cross-check
Fire radiative power (FRP) measures the energy the fire gives off when the satellite passes. Added up by day, it compares intensity, not area.
Danger at the start
model32.7FWI · high
Fire Weather Index (Canadian system) computed by WorldFires for the day the fire started. Consecutive days without rain before: 2.
- Source
- WorldFires calculation (Canadian FWI system)
- Date
- 2 Mar 2024, local noon
- Model
- ERA5 0,25° (ECMWF · Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com
+− cross-check
This is an index computed from weather model data, not a measurement of the fire nor an official warning. Danger warnings are issued by each country’s authority. Emergency number and official warnings
Weather during the fire
model35.4°C · 29% RH
High of 35.4 °C and minimum humidity of 29% on 2 March 2024; gusts of 36 km/h on 3 March 2024.
- Source
- weather model at the fire’s grid cell
- Date
- 2 Mar 2024 – 10 Mar 2024
- Model
- ERA5 0,25° (ECMWF · Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com
+− cross-check
These are model values for a cell of about 25 km, not from a weather station: they may differ from what was measured on the ground.
This page’s change log has been kept since 24 October 2026: every night what it publishes is compared and the difference is logged. Anything earlier is reconstructed from each source’s date and marked as reconstructed.
Show
-
· reconstructed weatherWeather and FWI computed from the ERA5 reanalysis
-
logLast day with fire: 17 March 2024 → 10 March 2024.
-
logStart date: 24 February 2024 → 2 March 2024.
-
logLast day with fire: 10 March 2024 → 17 March 2024.
-
logStart date: 2 March 2024 → 24 February 2024.
-
· reconstructed GHSLPopulation and built-up area computed
Area logged each night
Move the slider to see which area the page published each day.
Versioned permanent link
https://worldfires.org/en/fire/balizia-2024-03?v=2026-11-01A version keeps the area, dates, name and official record; the area as it was logged (changes under 2% are not logged). The map, hotspots and weather always show today’s data.
Citation
A lede of about 60 words figures only, no adjectives
CSV for this fire balizia-2024-03.csv · daily, no individual hotspots
| fecha | focos_viirs | frp_mw | tmax_c | tmin_c | hr_min_pct | viento_max_kmh | racha_max_kmh | precip_mm | fwi | clase_fwi | dentro_del_incendio |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2024-03-02 | 4 | 29 | 35.4 | 20.4 | 29 | 11.1 | 27.4 | 0 | 32.7 | alto | 1 |
| 2024-03-03 | 4 | 106 | 35.4 | 23.3 | 28 | 16.1 | 36 | 0 | 37.5 | alto | 1 |
| 2024-03-04 | 12 | 176 | 35 | 21.2 | 38 | 10.2 | 22 | 0 | 31.8 | alto | 1 |
| 2024-03-05 | 3 | 115 | 34.3 | 22.5 | 31 | 11.3 | 25.9 | 0 | 32.9 | alto | 1 |
| 2024-03-06 | 1 | 9 | 35.4 | 21.8 | 30 | 10.9 | 29.9 | 0 | 32.9 | alto | 1 |
| 2024-03-07 | 0 | 0 | 34.6 | 21.4 | 34 | 13.5 | 30.6 | 0 | 35.3 | alto | 1 |
| 2024-03-08 | 0 | 0 | 34 | 20.9 | 44 | 11.6 | 28.1 | 0.4 | 30 | alto | 1 |
| 2024-03-09 | 20 | 713 | 33.7 | 23.3 | 46 | 8.9 | 27.7 | 1.6 | 14.5 | moderado | 1 |
| 2024-03-10 | 7 | 133 | 35 | 23.4 | 43 | 12.1 | 25.2 | 7.3 | 6.6 | bajo | 1 |
| 2024-03-11 | 0 | 0 | 35.9 | 22.3 | 34 | 8.6 | 26.3 | 0.7 | 19.3 | moderado | 0 |
| 2024-03-12 | 0 | 0 | 33.7 | 23 | 40 | 10.1 | 21.6 | 3.5 | 7.6 | bajo | 0 |
It is generated in your browser from this page’s data: one file per fire, aggregated by day and without individual hotspots.
Live widget for your story
It updates itself while the fire is still active and links to this page. Free, with the attribution shown at the bottom.
Sources for this page: GWIS (Copernicus), NASA FIRMS (VIIRS), ERA5 (ECMWF/Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0), GHSL (JRC). Open-Meteo.com · How we build fire pages: methodology
- Burnt area
- 2,053ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 9days
- 2 Mar 2024 – 10 Mar 2024
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- sub-prefectures
- Started on
- 2 Mar
- 2024
- Heat detections
- 51
- in a single hotspot: 0 MW
- Danger at start
- 33
- High · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 183MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
HOTSPOTS BY DAY
2 Mar10 Mar
10 Mar 2024
How it evolved, day by day
2 Mar
4 Mar
9 Mar
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
35°high
36km/h · peak gust
28%lowest humidity
It had gone 2 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 3.5 mm on 12 Mar.
This area had burned before
78% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 538 ha in 2016, 1,100 ha in 2017, 47 ha in 2019, 357 ha in 2020, 297 ha in 2022, 216 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,600 ha that had burned before.
- 1,100 ha Balizia fire, March 2017 8,781 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 357 ha Balizia fire, February 2020 8,818 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 56 ha Voinjama fire, March 2022 5,343 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
How big is it?
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Paris boundary: geoBoundaries · Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière (IGN-F) (Etalab Open License 2.0).
Madrid boundary: geoBoundaries · Open Data ESRI, IGN Central Registry of Cartography Area (CC BY 4.0).
Berlin boundary: geoBoundaries · Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy (dl-de/by-2-0).
This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.
What happened to each town
-
Balizia where it started1,676 ha4.1 %
-
74 ha0.3 %
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 2025Built-up area< 0.1 ha
Residents< 20
Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2 Mar | 35.4 °C | 29 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 3 Mar | 35.4 °C | 28 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 4 Mar | 35.0 °C | 38 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 5 Mar | 34.3 °C | 31 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 6 Mar | 35.4 °C | 30 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 7 Mar | 34.6 °C | 34 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 8 Mar | 34.0 °C | 44 % | 28 km/h | 0.4 mm | High 30 |
| 9 Mar | 33.7 °C | 46 % | 28 km/h | 1.6 mm | Moderate 14 |
| 10 Mar | 35.0 °C | 43 % | 25 km/h | 7.3 mm | Low 7 |
| 11 Mar after | 35.9 °C | 34 % | 26 km/h | 0.7 mm | Moderate 19 |
| 12 Mar after | 33.7 °C | 40 % | 22 km/h | 3.5 mm | Low 8 |
Its twins: fires that started in the same weather
It started with an FWI of 32.7, a minimum humidity of 29% and 2 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 37.
FWI at the start
32.7
Minimum humidity
29 %
Days without rain
2
this fire
chosen twins
rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar
Outlines of the closest twins
This fire · Balizia fire, March 2024
2,053 ha
9 days
FWI 32.7
Min. humidity 29 %
Binikala fire, February 2020
3,479 ha
10 days
FWI 31.9
Min. humidity 29 %
39 km away, in 2020
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 2.1 mm on 8 Mar.
Kolahun fire, March 2024
1,007 ha
4 days
FWI 33.0
Min. humidity 28 %
81 km away, in 2024
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 1.8 mm on 28 Mar.
Mongo fire, March 2017
1,775 ha
6 days
FWI 32.7
Min. humidity 29 %
194 km away, in 2017
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 5.3 mm on 25 Mar.
Voinjama fire, March 2020
3,006 ha
4 days
FWI 31.5
Min. humidity 29 %
36 km away, in 2020
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 2.4 mm on 6 Mar.
Sandor fire, March 2020
2,136 ha
11 days
FWI 32.2
Min. humidity 29 %
177 km away, in 2020
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 2.2 mm on 25 Mar.
What happened to them
- 10 days
- median duration
- 1,622 ha
- median area
- 100 %
- went past 1,000 ha
- 3.8 mm
- rain at the end (median; 36 of 37 had it)
It burned an area similar to its twins (2,053 ha against a median of 1,622 ha) and lasted 9 days, against 10 days.
In 1 of 37, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 3.8 mm.
This is a bank of analogues: it shows what usually happens, not what will happen. With fewer than 15 twins we give no figures. How we calculate it
How it ended
3.5 mmfirst rain
12 Mar2 days after it ended
36km/h · max. gust
It was considered over on 10 Mar, and on 12 Mar 3.5 mm fell. We do not know whether the rain or the firefighters put it out. Twins with rain when they ended: 36 of 37, with a median of 3.8 mm.
Weather on this page: Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)
How a twin is chosen
- Same area: fires that have already ended, less than 250 km from this one, since 2016.
- Same start: we compare the FWI on the first day, the minimum humidity that day and the run of days without rain before it. The slider sets how much they may differ.
- Only pages with final weather data (ERA5 reanalysis) calculated in the same way as this fire’s; agricultural and grass burns and pages with data under review are left out.
- Fires burning at the same time as this one (a week before or after) are left out: they share the same spell of weather and do not count as a precedent.
- They are sorted by similarity, and the outlines of the first five are drawn.
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
↔
Before · 24 Feb 2024
After · 17 Mar 2024
Sentinel-2 did not pass over on that day. Try another date, or use false colour, which is daily.
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 · CopernicusOn 4 March 2024 the air beside the fire reached 139 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 94: 6.3 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
PM2.5 peak139 µg/m³
Days over the guideline14 days
PM10189 µg/m³
Optical depth2.23
WHO 15
29 Feb3 Mar6 Mar9 Mar12 Mar
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 · 0Every 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
- 8,781 haBalizia3 March 2017 · 11 days · 6 km away
- 8,818 haBaliziaFebruary 2020 · 25 days · 11 km away
- 7,494 haVoinjama23 February 2019 · 24 days · 27 km away
- 11,753 haQuardu Boundi4 March 2017 · 15 days · 28 km away
- 7,276 haQuardu BoundiFebruary 2019 · 32 days · 30 km away
- 8,644 haVoinjama4 March 2022 · 13 days · 33 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Balizia fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 2 March 2024 and 10 March 2024: 9 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 2,053 hectares (20.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Balizia (1,676 ha, 4.1 %); Bofossou (74 ha, 0.3 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 35.4 °C, humidity dropped to 28 % and gusts hit 36 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 38, class High.
- Where does this data come from?
- From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Guinea (geoBoundaries). It is not an official report.
- How did the fires that started in similar weather in this area end?
- Fires less than 250 km away that started since 2016 with a similar FWI, humidity and dry spell: 37. Their median duration was 10 days and their median area 1,622 ha; 100 % went past 1,000 ha. In 1 of 37, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 3.8 mm.
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.
Satellite cross-check
History of this page · 4 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
- Last day with fire: 17 March 2024 → 10 March 2024.
- Start date: 24 February 2024 → 2 March 2024.
- Last day with fire: 10 March 2024 → 17 March 2024.
- Start date: 2 March 2024 → 24 February 2024.
RSS Changes to this page With cross-checks and a citable version
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
How we know this
- Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery.
- Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. No 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.
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 ADM3 (Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Intergovernmental Organisations (CC BY 3.0 IGO)). 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.