Déou fire, 25 November 2023 Déou, Arbinda, Koutougou
The fire started on 25 November 2023 in Déou, Burkina Faso, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,561 hectares from heat detections, spread across 3 municipalities.
It is the 34th largest in Liptako since 2016 (of 222 with a page). Number 8 in Burkina Faso in 2023, of 261.
The power measured by the satellite is low (14.5 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 4,561ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 3days
- 25 Nov 2023 – 27 Nov 2023
- Municipalities hit
- 3
- communes
- Started on
- 25 Nov
- 2023
- Heat detections
- 103
- in a single hotspot: 14 MW
- Danger at start
- 53
- Extreme · 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 56 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
2% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 84 ha in 2021.
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
-
Déou where it started3,314 ha reached on 25 Nov1.6 %
-
1,263 ha reached on 26 Nov0.4 %
-
9 ha0.0 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 25 Nov | 34.8 °C | 9 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 26 Nov | 36.4 °C | 6 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 27 Nov | 35.9 °C | 16 % | 16 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 28 Nov after | 36.9 °C | 9 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 61 |
| 29 Nov after | 37.1 °C | 10 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 61 |
| 30 Nov after | 38.2 °C | 12 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 58 |
| 1 Dec after | 38.8 °C | 10 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 64 |
| 2 Dec after | 37.8 °C | 11 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 56 |
| 3 Dec after | 37.5 °C | 11 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 59 |
| 4 Dec after | 35.9 °C | 9 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 55 |
| 5 Dec after | 36.1 °C | 8 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 6 Dec after | 36.7 °C | 5 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 60 |
| 7 Dec after | 36.0 °C | 5 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 67 |
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.
The smoke
CAMS · CopernicusOn 26 November 2023 the air beside the fire reached 69 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 43: 2.8 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
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 · 103Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 37,890 haArbinda26 October 2025 · 8 days · 11 km away
- 8,265 haDéou17 October 2025 · 4 days · 11 km away
- 9,569 haArbinda27 October 2022 · 4 days · 16 km away
- 9,509 haKoutougouJanuary 2023 · 4 days · 16 km away
- 24,590 haArbinda 19 October 2026 · 6 days · 23 km away
- 8,161 haArbinda11 November 2020 · 7 days · 28 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Déou fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 25 November 2023 and 27 November 2023: 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 4,561 hectares (45.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 3 municipalities: Déou (3,314 ha, 1.6 %); Arbinda (1,263 ha, 0.4 %); Koutougou (9 ha, 0.0 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 36.4 °C, humidity dropped to 6 % and gusts hit 27 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 53, class Extreme.
- Where does this data come from?
- From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Burkina Faso (OCHA COD-AB). 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
How we know this
- Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery.
- Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 103 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 OCHA COD-AB (Institut Geographique Burkina (IGB)) (Creative Commons Attribution for Intergovernmental Organisations (CC BY-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.