Skip to content
worldfires
GH · Ghana · →

Dormaa fire, January 2025 Dormaa, Asutifi North, Dormaa West

Out · last detection 12 Feb 2025, 01:50 UTC

The fire started on 25 January 2025 in Dormaa, Ghana, and satellites saw it burning for 18 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 19,008 hectares from heat detections, spread across 4 municipalities.

It is the 2th largest in Bono since 2016 (of 51 with a page). Number 5 in Ghana in 2025, of 144.

Burnt area
19,008ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
18days
25 Jan 2025 – 11 Feb 2025
Municipalities hit
4
districts
Started on
25 Jan
2025
Heat detections
1,603
in a single hotspot: 111 MW
Danger at start
39
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
9.9GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

12 Feb 2025
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 25 Jan11 Feb

How it evolved, day by day

25262829303112345678101112

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

The weather it burned in

39°high
35km/h · peak gust
12%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.2 mm on 13 Feb.

This area had burned before

4% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 692 ha in 2020.

What happened to each town

  1. Dormaa where it started
    18,438 ha reached on 18 Jan
    15 %
  2. Asutifi North
    413 ha reached on 2 Feb
    0.4 %
  3. Dormaa West
    246 ha reached on 4 Feb
    0.6 %
  4. Asunafo North
    23 ha reached on 10 Feb
    0.0 %

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 Jan 37.7 °C 23 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
26 Jan 37.0 °C 31 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
27 Jan 36.5 °C 28 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
28 Jan 36.4 °C 27 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
29 Jan 37.2 °C 24 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
30 Jan 36.2 °C 28 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
31 Jan 36.5 °C 29 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
1 Feb 37.7 °C 23 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
2 Feb 37.0 °C 27 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
3 Feb 36.5 °C 24 % 25 km/h 0.2 mm Very high 39
4 Feb 37.5 °C 13 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
5 Feb 39.0 °C 12 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
6 Feb 37.1 °C 28 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
7 Feb 37.7 °C 28 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
8 Feb 38.5 °C 27 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
9 Feb 35.7 °C 35 % 28 km/h 0.4 mm High 36
10 Feb 37.8 °C 30 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
11 Feb 37.9 °C 31 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
12 Feb after 38.1 °C 33 % 34 km/h 0.5 mm Very high 42
13 Feb after 37.0 °C 38 % 30 km/h 1.2 mm High 25

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 18 Jan 2025
After · 18 Feb 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 6 February 2025 the air beside the fire reached 224 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 145: 9.7 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak224 µg/m³
Days over the guideline23 days
PM10341 µg/m³
Optical depth2.91
2324252627282930311234567891011121314
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 · 1,603Every 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 Ghana ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Dormaa fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 25 January 2025 and 11 February 2025: 18 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 19,008 hectares (190.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 4 municipalities: Dormaa (18,438 ha, 15 %); Asutifi North (413 ha, 0.4 %); Dormaa West (246 ha, 0.6 %); Asunafo North (23 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 39.0 °C, humidity dropped to 12 % and gusts hit 35 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 46, class Very high.
Where does this data come from?
From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Ghana (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.

Emergency number: 112

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. This is not an emergency service: if there is a fire now, call 112.

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 (Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)). 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.