Boola fire, January 2021 Boola
The fire started on 26 January 2021 in Boola, Guinea, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,391 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 35th largest in Nzérékoré since 2016 (of 241 with a page). Number 19 in Guinea in 2021, of 111.
Compare with…
Suggestions: Boola · 2018Boola · 2017Boola · 2020Boola · 2016
- Burnt area
- 4,391ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 7days
- 26 Jan 2021 – 1 Feb 2021
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- sub-prefectures
- Started on
- 26 Jan
- 2021
- Heat detections
- 173
- in a single hotspot: 87 MW
- Danger at start
- 28
- High · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 194MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone 14 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
91% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,394 ha in 2016, 1,560 ha in 2017, 2,351 ha in 2018, 2,435 ha in 2019, 1,145 ha in 2020. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 4,003 ha that had burned before.
- 1,351 ha Boola fire, January 2018 6,771 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,005 ha Boola fire, January 2017 4,163 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 826 ha Boola fire, January 2020 3,015 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 459 ha Boola fire, January 2016 2,183 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 319 ha Boola fire, January 2020 2,608 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 33 ha Boola fire, January 2018 2,146 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
-
Boola where it started4,420 ha reached on 24 Jan4.2 %
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.
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 26 Jan | 33.8 °C | 19 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 27 Jan | 34.2 °C | 22 % | 21 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 28 Jan | 33.2 °C | 29 % | 21 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 29 Jan | 32.4 °C | 35 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 30 Jan | 33.5 °C | 26 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 31 Jan | 33.8 °C | 19 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 1 Feb | 33.7 °C | 15 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 2 Feb after | 32.0 °C | 34 % | 21 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 3 Feb after | 32.3 °C | 36 % | 22 km/h | 0.3 mm | High 25 |
| 4 Feb after | 33.3 °C | 32 % | 21 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 5 Feb after | 34.3 °C | 29 % | 27 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 29 |
| 6 Feb after | 31.1 °C | 40 % | 28 km/h | 0.4 mm | High 26 |
| 7 Feb after | 34.7 °C | 23 % | 19 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 8 Feb after | 34.0 °C | 24 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 9 Feb after | 35.0 °C | 18 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 10 Feb after | 35.0 °C | 20 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 11 Feb after | 35.0 °C | 26 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
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 · 173Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Boola fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 26 January 2021 and 1 February 2021: 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 4,391 hectares (43.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Boola (4,420 ha, 4.2 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 34.2 °C, humidity dropped to 15 % and gusts hit 26 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 32, 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.
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 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
No changes since 24 October 2026.
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; 2 polygons grouped in this page.
- Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 173 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.
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.