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Bole fire, 14 January 2020 Bole

Out · last detection 21 Jan 2020, 14:03 UTC

The fire started on 14 January 2020 in Bole, Ghana, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,359 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 98th largest in Savannah since 2016 (of 336 with a page). Number 33 in Ghana in 2020, of 111.

The power measured by the satellite is low (13.7 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Burnt area
3,359ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
7days
14 Jan 2020 – 20 Jan 2020
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
14 Jan
2020
Heat detections
120
in a single hotspot: 14 MW
Danger at start
45
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
474MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

21 Jan 2020
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 14 Jan20 Jan

How it evolved, day by day

1415161718192021

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

The weather it burned in

36°high
35km/h · peak gust
13%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

35% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,699 ha in 2018. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,169 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Bole where it started
    3,381 ha reached on 14 Jan
    0.5 %

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

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)
14 Jan 35.1 °C 15 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
15 Jan 36.1 °C 13 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
16 Jan 35.2 °C 16 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
17 Jan 36.3 °C 20 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
18 Jan 35.3 °C 17 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
19 Jan 34.7 °C 19 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
20 Jan 35.4 °C 23 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
21 Jan after 36.4 °C 31 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
22 Jan after 35.9 °C 25 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
23 Jan after 36.8 °C 15 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
24 Jan after 35.9 °C 13 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
25 Jan after 34.8 °C 9 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
26 Jan after 35.9 °C 13 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
27 Jan after 35.3 °C 13 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
28 Jan after 34.5 °C 12 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
29 Jan after 36.2 °C 15 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
30 Jan after 37.3 °C 8 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 7 Jan 2020
After · 27 Jan 2020

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

Detections table · 120Every 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 timeSatelliteFRP (MW)LatLon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Ghana ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Bole fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 14 January 2020 and 20 January 2020: 7 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 3,359 hectares (33.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Bole (3,381 ha, 0.5 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.3 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 35 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 48, 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

Satellite cross-check

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
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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.

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.