Burned area
satellite only2,514ha
Perimeter published by GWIS (Copernicus).
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus)
- Date
- 1 Apr 2016 – 7 Apr 2016
+− cross-check
No official record is matched to this page to compare it with.
SL · Sierra Leone · –
Tane fire, 1 April 2016 Gbonkolenken, Tane
Out · last detection 7 Apr 2016, 14:55 UTC
The fire started on 1 April 2016 in Tane, Sierra Leone, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,514 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 105th largest in Northern since 2016 (of 937 with a page). Number 32 in Sierra Leone in 2016, of 208.
Use this data
Compare with…
Use this data
Fire page data · version 2026-11-01matches the official recordwith caveatssatellite onlymodel
When copying, the sentence is
Tick the figures you want: they make up the lede and the CSV.
Duration by satellite
satellite only7days
1 Apr 2016 to 7 Apr 2016: first and last day with fire on the page.
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
- Date
- last detection: 7 Apr 2016, 14:55 UTC
+− cross-check
Satellites pass a few times a day and cloud or smoke can hide the fire: a lack of detections is not an official extinction. Each country’s emergency service declares a fire contained or out.
Start
satellite only1 Apr 2016
First day with fire seen by the satellites or the perimeter.
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
- Date
- 1 Apr 2016
+− cross-check
No official record is matched to this page, so the alert time and the cause are not known here.
The worst day
satellite only658MW
Total radiative power on 6 April 2016; hotspots that day: 26.
- Source
- NASA FIRMS · VIIRS (FRP)
- Date
- 6 Apr 2016
+− cross-check
Fire radiative power (FRP) measures the energy the fire gives off when the satellite passes. Added up by day, it compares intensity, not area.
Danger at the start
model25.5FWI · high
Fire Weather Index (Canadian system) computed by WorldFires for the day the fire started. Consecutive days without rain before: 1.
- Source
- WorldFires calculation (Canadian FWI system)
- Date
- 1 Apr 2016, local noon
- Model
- ERA5 0,25° (ECMWF · Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com
+− cross-check
This is an index computed from weather model data, not a measurement of the fire nor an official warning. Danger warnings are issued by each country’s authority. Emergency number and official warnings
Weather during the fire
model37.8°C · 32% RH
High of 37.8 °C and minimum humidity of 32% on 3 April 2016; gusts of 35 km/h on 7 April 2016.
- Source
- weather model at the fire’s grid cell
- Date
- 1 Apr 2016 – 7 Apr 2016
- Model
- ERA5 0,25° (ECMWF · Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com
+− cross-check
These are model values for a cell of about 25 km, not from a weather station: they may differ from what was measured on the ground.
Living inside
model≈ 1,300people
Estimated residents inside the perimeter and 3.0 ha of built-up area (100 m grid, epoch 2015).
- Source
- GHSL R2023A · JRC
- Date
- calculated on 4 November 2026
+− cross-check
This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned.
This page’s change log has been kept since 24 October 2026: every night what it publishes is compared and the difference is logged. Anything earlier is reconstructed from each source’s date and marked as reconstructed.
Show
-
· reconstructed weatherWeather and FWI computed from the ERA5 reanalysis
-
· reconstructed GHSLPopulation and built-up area computed
-
logLast day with fire: 9 April 2016 → 7 April 2016.
-
logStart date: 28 March 2016 → 1 April 2016.
-
logName: Gbonkolenken → Tane.
-
logLast day with fire: 7 April 2016 → 9 April 2016.
-
logStart date: 1 April 2016 → 28 March 2016.
Area logged each night
Move the slider to see which area the page published each day.
Versioned permanent link
https://worldfires.org/en/fire/tane-2016-04?v=2026-11-01A version keeps the area, dates, name and official record; the area as it was logged (changes under 2% are not logged). The map, hotspots and weather always show today’s data.
Citation
A lede of about 60 words figures only, no adjectives
CSV for this fire tane-2016-04.csv · daily, no individual hotspots
| fecha | focos_viirs | frp_mw | tmax_c | tmin_c | hr_min_pct | viento_max_kmh | racha_max_kmh | precip_mm | fwi | clase_fwi | dentro_del_incendio |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2016-04-01 | 1 | 7 | 36.6 | 24.1 | 37 | 12.6 | 25.9 | 0 | 25.5 | alto | 1 |
| 2016-04-02 | 7 | 41 | 37.1 | 24.8 | 32 | 15.2 | 31.7 | 0 | 30.3 | alto | 1 |
| 2016-04-03 | 11 | 45 | 37.8 | 24.4 | 32 | 15.3 | 32 | 0 | 31.4 | alto | 1 |
| 2016-04-04 | 15 | 153 | 36.8 | 25.6 | 33 | 13.8 | 28.8 | 0.1 | 30.8 | alto | 1 |
| 2016-04-05 | 2 | 9 | 37.4 | 25.3 | 29 | 13.9 | 31.7 | 0 | 32.6 | alto | 1 |
| 2016-04-06 | 26 | 658 | 37.6 | 24.2 | 27 | 16 | 33.5 | 0 | 36.1 | alto | 1 |
| 2016-04-07 | 5 | 33 | 36.7 | 24.4 | 34 | 16.5 | 35.3 | 0 | 37.1 | alto | 1 |
| 2016-04-08 | 0 | 0 | 35 | 24.9 | 47 | 12.6 | 33.8 | 2.2 | 12.9 | moderado | 0 |
It is generated in your browser from this page’s data: one file per fire, aggregated by day and without individual hotspots.
Live widget for your story
It updates itself while the fire is still active and links to this page. Free, with the attribution shown at the bottom.
Sources for this page: GWIS (Copernicus), NASA FIRMS (VIIRS), ERA5 (ECMWF/Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0), GHSL (JRC). Open-Meteo.com · How we build fire pages: methodology
- Burnt area
- 2,514ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 7days
- 1 Apr 2016 – 7 Apr 2016
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- chiefdoms
- Started on
- 1 Apr
- 2016
- Heat detections
- 67
- in a single hotspot: 0 MW
- Danger at start
- 26
- High · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 135MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
HOTSPOTS BY DAY
1 Apr7 Apr
7 Apr 2016
How it evolved, day by day
1 Apr
3 Apr
6 Apr
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
38°high
35km/h · peak gust
27%lowest humidity
It had gone one day without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.2 mm on 8 Apr.
This area had burned before
No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.
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
-
1,337 ha1.8 %
-
Tane where it started1,193 ha2.7 %
Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance runs from the point marking the centre of each area to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.
People and buildings inside the perimeter
GHSL 2015Built-up area3.0 ha
Residents≈ 1,300
Inside the perimeter there were about 3.0 hectares of built-up land and about 1,300 residents (GHSL 2015, satellite-based estimate).
This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned.
Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 Apr | 36.6 °C | 37 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 2 Apr | 37.1 °C | 32 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 3 Apr | 37.8 °C | 32 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 4 Apr | 36.8 °C | 33 % | 29 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 31 |
| 5 Apr | 37.4 °C | 29 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 6 Apr | 37.6 °C | 27 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 7 Apr | 36.7 °C | 34 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 8 Apr after | 35.0 °C | 47 % | 34 km/h | 2.2 mm | Moderate 13 |
Its twins: fires that started in the same weather
It started with an FWI of 25.5, a minimum humidity of 37% and 1 day without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 38.
FWI at the start
25.5
Minimum humidity
37 %
Days without rain
1
this fire
chosen twins
rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar
Outlines of the closest twins
This fire · Tane fire, 1 April 2016
2,514 ha
7 days
FWI 25.5
Min. humidity 37 %
Gbonkolenken fire, March 2020
1,224 ha
9 days
FWI 26.3
Min. humidity 36 %
1 km away, in 2020
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 3.8 mm on 26 Mar.
Kunike fire, March 2020
2,308 ha
18 days
FWI 25.3
Min. humidity 36 %
55 km away, in 2020
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 1.9 mm on 25 Mar.
Paki Masabong fire, April 2017
1,634 ha
17 days
FWI 24.8
Min. humidity 36 %
34 km away, in 2017
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 6.4 mm on 18 Apr.
Tunkia fire, March 2025
1,235 ha
10 days
FWI 25.9
Min. humidity 37 %
142 km away, in 2025
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 6.3 mm on 23 Mar.
Kunike fire, March 2023
1,906 ha
10 days
FWI 25.3
Min. humidity 38 %
58 km away, in 2023
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 6.7 mm on 29 Mar.
What happened to them
- 10 days
- median duration
- 1,355 ha
- median area
- 100 %
- went past 1,000 ha
- 3.6 mm
- rain at the end (median; 36 of 38 had it)
It was 1.9 times larger than the median of its twins and lasted 7 days, against 10 days.
Only 2 of its 38 twins burned more. The weather on the first day does not explain everything: the wind in the following days, the fuel and the firefighting also count. In 2 of 38, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 3.6 mm.
This is a bank of analogues: it shows what usually happens, not what will happen. With fewer than 15 twins we give no figures. How we calculate it
How it ended
2.2 mmfirst rain
8 Aprthe day after it ended
35km/h · max. gust
It was considered over on 7 Apr, and on 8 Apr 2.2 mm fell. We do not know whether the rain or the firefighters put it out. Twins with rain when they ended: 36 of 38, with a median of 3.6 mm.
Weather on this page: Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)
How a twin is chosen
- Same area: fires that have already ended, less than 250 km from this one, since 2016.
- Same start: we compare the FWI on the first day, the minimum humidity that day and the run of days without rain before it. The slider sets how much they may differ.
- Only pages with final weather data (ERA5 reanalysis) calculated in the same way as this fire’s; agricultural and grass burns and pages with data under review are left out.
- Fires burning at the same time as this one (a week before or after) are left out: they share the same spell of weather and do not count as a precedent.
- They are sorted by similarity, and the outlines of the first five are drawn.
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
↔
Before · 25 Mar 2016
After · 14 Apr 2016
Sentinel-2 did not pass over on that day. Try another date, or use false colour, which is daily.
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 · 0Every 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 time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Tane fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 1 April 2016 and 7 April 2016: 7 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 2,514 hectares (25.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Gbonkolenken (1,337 ha, 1.8 %); Tane (1,193 ha, 2.7 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 37.8 °C, humidity dropped to 27 % and gusts hit 35 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 37, class High.
- Where does this data come from?
- From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Sierra Leone (geoBoundaries). It is not an official report.
- How did the fires that started in similar weather in this area end?
- Fires less than 250 km away that started since 2016 with a similar FWI, humidity and dry spell: 38. Their median duration was 10 days and their median area 1,355 ha; 100 % went past 1,000 ha. Only 2 of its 38 twins burned more. The weather on the first day does not explain everything: the wind in the following days, the fuel and the firefighting also count. In 2 of 38, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 3.6 mm.
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
History of this page · 5 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
- Last day with fire: 9 April 2016 → 7 April 2016.
- Start date: 28 March 2016 → 1 April 2016.
- Name: Gbonkolenken → Tane.
- Last day with fire: 7 April 2016 → 9 April 2016.
- Start date: 1 April 2016 → 28 March 2016.
RSS Changes to this page With cross-checks and a citable version
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. No 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.
- Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2015, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.
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 4.0 (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.