Skip to content
worldfires
BJ · Benin · →

Boukombe fire, December 2024 Boukombe, Tanguiéta

Out · last detection 1 Jan 2025, 12:43 UTC

The fire started on 30 December 2024 in Boukombe, Benin, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 1,100 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 465th largest in Atakora since 2016 (of 523 with a page). Number 75 in Benin in 2024, of 86.

The power measured by the satellite is low (8.4 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
1,100ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
3days
30 Dec 2024 – 1 Jan 2025
Municipalities hit
2
communes
Started on
30 Dec
2024
Heat detections
20
in a single hotspot: 8 MW
Energy released
59MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

1 Jan 2025
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 30 Dec1 Jan

How it evolved, day by day

311

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

This area had burned before

94% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 795 ha in 2016, 243 ha in 2020, 943 ha in 2022, 474 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,035 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Boukombe where it started
    700 ha reached on 31 Dec
    0.7 %
  2. Tanguiéta
    406 ha reached on 31 Dec
    0.1 %

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.

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 23 Dec 2024
After · 8 Jan 2025

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 1 January 2025 the air beside the fire reached 123 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 98: 6.5 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak123 µg/m³
Days over the guideline8 days
PM10658 µg/m³
Optical depth0.82
282930311234
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 · 20Every 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 Benin ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Boukombe fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 30 December 2024 and 1 January 2025: 3 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 1,100 hectares (11.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Boukombe (700 ha, 0.7 %); Tanguiéta (406 ha, 0.1 %).
Where does this data come from?
From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Benin (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.

Report an error
What do you think is wrong?

We will only use your email to reply about this report. Privacy.

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 (Public Domain). 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.