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Boola fire, January 2022 Boola

Out · last detection 24 Jan 2022, 14:41 UTC

The fire started on 13 January 2022 in Boola, Guinea, and satellites saw it burning for 12 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,033 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 45th largest in Nzérékoré since 2016 (of 241 with a page). Number 16 in Guinea in 2022, of 107.

Burnt area
4,033ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
12days
13 Jan 2022 – 24 Jan 2022
Municipalities hit
1
sub-prefectures
Started on
13 Jan
2022
Heat detections
152
in a single hotspot: 38 MW
Danger at start
31
High · FWI index
Energy released
588MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

24 Jan 2022
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 13 Jan24 Jan

How it evolved, day by day

1314151617181920212324

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

The weather it burned in

33°high
34km/h · peak gust
13%lowest humidity

It had gone 27 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

97% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,182 ha in 2016, 1,411 ha in 2017, 2,267 ha in 2018, 1,388 ha in 2019, 1,690 ha in 2020, 1,778 ha in 2021. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 3,909 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Boola where it started
    4,060 ha reached on 8 Jan
    3.9 %

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)
13 Jan 32.3 °C 25 % 16 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
14 Jan 32.8 °C 25 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
15 Jan 31.4 °C 20 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
16 Jan 31.1 °C 20 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
17 Jan 32.3 °C 20 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
18 Jan 31.7 °C 14 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
19 Jan 31.4 °C 15 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
20 Jan 31.5 °C 17 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
21 Jan 31.1 °C 13 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
22 Jan 31.4 °C 14 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
23 Jan 31.6 °C 14 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
24 Jan 31.3 °C 15 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
25 Jan after 31.9 °C 13 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
26 Jan after 31.4 °C 13 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
27 Jan after 31.1 °C 30 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
28 Jan after 31.0 °C 34 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
29 Jan after 32.7 °C 25 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
30 Jan after 32.8 °C 12 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
31 Jan after 32.6 °C 16 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
1 Feb after 31.5 °C 16 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
2 Feb after 32.1 °C 16 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
3 Feb after 31.9 °C 14 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 6 Jan 2022
After · 31 Jan 2022

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 · 152Every 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 Guinea ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Boola fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 13 January 2022 and 24 January 2022: 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 4,033 hectares (40.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Boola (4,060 ha, 3.9 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 32.8 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 34 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 41, class Very 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

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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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.