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Déou fire, 3 December 2024 Déou

Out · last detection 5 Dec 2024, 01:41 UTC

The fire started on 3 December 2024 in Déou, Burkina Faso, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,808 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 67th largest in Liptako since 2016 (of 222 with a page). Number 64 in Burkina Faso in 2024, of 380.

The power measured by the satellite is low (19.1 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
2,808ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
3days
3 Dec 2024 – 5 Dec 2024
Municipalities hit
1
communes
Started on
3 Dec
2024
Heat detections
52
in a single hotspot: 19 MW
Danger at start
62
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
224MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

5 Dec 2024
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 3 Dec5 Dec

How it evolved, day by day

45

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

The weather it burned in

34°high
41km/h · peak gust
10%lowest humidity

It had gone 56 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

25% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 48 ha in 2022, 644 ha in 2023.

What happened to each town

  1. Déou where it started
    2,827 ha reached on 4 Dec
    1.4 %

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)
3 Dec 33.4 °C 11 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
4 Dec 33.5 °C 11 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 63
5 Dec 33.2 °C 10 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
6 Dec after 32.2 °C 10 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 67
7 Dec after 31.9 °C 11 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 70
8 Dec after 30.6 °C 12 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
9 Dec after 30.9 °C 9 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
10 Dec after 33.0 °C 11 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
11 Dec after 36.3 °C 11 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
12 Dec after 35.8 °C 15 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
13 Dec after 36.9 °C 12 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 68
14 Dec after 35.6 °C 8 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 68
15 Dec after 33.9 °C 5 % 40 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.

Before · 26 Nov 2024
After · 12 Dec 2024

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 7 December 2024 the air beside the fire reached 121 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 80: 5.3 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak121 µg/m³
Days over the guideline8 days
PM10794 µg/m³
Optical depth0.44
12345678
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 · 52Every 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 Burkina Faso ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Déou fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 3 December 2024 and 5 December 2024: 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 2,808 hectares (28.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Déou (2,827 ha, 1.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 33.5 °C, humidity dropped to 10 % and gusts hit 41 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 63, 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.

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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 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.