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Bole fire, 11 December 2023 Bole

Out · last detection 21 Dec 2023, 13:51 UTC

The fire started on 11 December 2023 in Bole, Ghana, and satellites saw it burning for 10 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,939 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 137th largest in Savannah since 2016 (of 336 with a page). Number 30 in Ghana in 2023, of 77.

Burnt area
2,939ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
10days
11 Dec 2023 – 20 Dec 2023
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
11 Dec
2023
Heat detections
113
in a single hotspot: 86 MW
Danger at start
28
High · FWI index
Energy released
1.3GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

21 Dec 2023
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 11 Dec20 Dec

How it evolved, day by day

11121314151617182021

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
34km/h · peak gust
21%lowest humidity

It had gone 14 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

86% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 114 ha in 2016, 1,413 ha in 2017, 716 ha in 2019, 779 ha in 2020, 1,298 ha in 2021, 545 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,532 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Bole where it started
    2,961 ha reached on 4 Dec
    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)
11 Dec 35.1 °C 27 % 17 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
12 Dec 33.2 °C 25 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
13 Dec 32.0 °C 26 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
14 Dec 33.6 °C 25 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
15 Dec 33.9 °C 28 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
16 Dec 34.0 °C 25 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
17 Dec 34.6 °C 21 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
18 Dec 34.9 °C 22 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
19 Dec 33.5 °C 22 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
20 Dec 33.0 °C 24 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
21 Dec after 33.3 °C 19 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
22 Dec after 34.3 °C 22 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
23 Dec after 35.7 °C 26 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
24 Dec after 36.1 °C 25 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
25 Dec after 35.3 °C 22 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
26 Dec after 34.5 °C 20 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
27 Dec after 33.6 °C 22 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
28 Dec after 34.8 °C 25 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
29 Dec after 34.3 °C 26 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
30 Dec after 35.1 °C 24 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 35

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 4 Dec 2023
After · 27 Dec 2023

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 · 113Every 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 11 December 2023 and 20 December 2023: 10 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 2,939 hectares (29.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Bole (2,961 ha, 0.5 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 35.1 °C, humidity dropped to 21 % and gusts hit 34 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 34, class 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.