How long did the Bole fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 20 January 2026 and 31 January 2026: 12 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 3,329 hectares (33.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Bole (3,347 ha, 0.5 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 37.7 °C, humidity dropped to 9 % 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.

GH · Ghana · 2026-01-20 → 2026-01-31

Bole fire, 20 January 2026 Bole

Out · last detection 31 Jan 2026, 14:22 UTC

The fire started on 20 January 2026 in Bole, Ghana, and satellites saw it burning for 12 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,329 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 102th largest in Savannah since 2016 (of 336 with a page). Number 74 in Ghana in 2026, of 179.

The power measured by the satellite is low (13.6 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: 3,329ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 12days; 20 Jan 2026 – 31 Jan 2026
Municipalities hit: 1; districts
Started on: 20 Jan; 2026
Heat detections: 84; in a single hotspot: 14 MW
Danger at start: 37; High · FWI index
Energy released: 362MW; sum of detected power

Play back 31 Jan 2026

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 20 Jan31 Jan

How it evolved, day by day

2223242526272831

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

35km/h · peak gust

9%lowest humidity

It had gone 35 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

82% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 163 ha in 2017, 1,003 ha in 2018, 1,113 ha in 2020, 1,296 ha in 2022, 1,754 ha in 2024, 1,078 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,718 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

Bole where it started

3,347 ha reached on 17 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)
20 Jan	37.3 °C	19 %	25 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
21 Jan	34.8 °C	17 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 38
22 Jan	35.6 °C	15 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
23 Jan	36.1 °C	17 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
24 Jan	36.8 °C	15 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
25 Jan	36.9 °C	9 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 48
26 Jan	36.8 °C	9 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 48
27 Jan	37.5 °C	13 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 45
28 Jan	37.3 °C	14 %	22 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44
29 Jan	37.1 °C	19 %	22 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 43
30 Jan	37.7 °C	19 %	19 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
31 Jan	37.2 °C	27 %	22 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
1 Feb after	38.0 °C	29 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
2 Feb after	36.7 °C	37 %	34 km/h	0.1 mm	Very high 38
3 Feb after	35.6 °C	39 %	28 km/h	0.3 mm	High 34
4 Feb after	38.3 °C	24 %	25 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
5 Feb after	38.7 °C	18 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 43
6 Feb after	37.7 °C	26 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44
7 Feb after	36.7 °C	37 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
8 Feb after	38.2 °C	28 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
9 Feb after	38.0 °C	31 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
10 Feb after	36.4 °C	35 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 13 Jan 2026

After · 7 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 19 January 2026 the air beside the fire reached 103 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 78: 5.2 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak103 µg/m³

Days over the guideline17 days

PM10283 µg/m³

Optical depth1.12

WHO 15

1819202122232425262728293031123

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 · 84Every 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 Bole fire last?: GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 20 January 2026 and 31 January 2026: 12 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 3,329 hectares (33.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Bole (3,347 ha, 0.5 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 37.7 °C, humidity dropped to 9 % 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

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

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.

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What really happened?

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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.

Where it burned