Ghabou fire, March 2022 Ghabou
The fire started on 3 March 2022 in Ghabou, Mauritania, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,811 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 12th largest in Guidimaka since 2016 (of 56 with a page). Number 4 in Mauritania in 2022, of 19.
Compare with…
Suggestions: Ghabou · 2025Ghabou · 2022Ghabou · 2025Ghabou · 2020
- Burnt area
- 2,811ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 2days
- 3 Mar 2022 – 4 Mar 2022
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- departments
- Started on
- 3 Mar
- 2022
- Heat detections
- 109
- in a single hotspot: 51 MW
- Danger at start
- 67
- Extreme · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 480MW
- 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 more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
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
-
Ghabou where it started2,825 ha reached on 3 Mar0.8 %
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 Mar | 37.7 °C | 14 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 67 |
| 4 Mar | 35.0 °C | 12 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 61 |
| 5 Mar after | 35.9 °C | 9 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 58 |
| 6 Mar after | 36.4 °C | 11 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 7 Mar after | 36.9 °C | 11 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 66 |
| 8 Mar after | 36.5 °C | 10 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 66 |
| 9 Mar after | 38.7 °C | 8 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 62 |
| 10 Mar after | 40.1 °C | 10 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 61 |
| 11 Mar after | 39.5 °C | 9 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 71 |
| 12 Mar after | 39.2 °C | 9 % | 49 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 75 |
| 13 Mar after | 40.5 °C | 9 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 66 |
| 14 Mar after | 39.9 °C | 9 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 55 |
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.
Detections table · 109Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 5,401 haGhabou16 November 2025 · 2 days · 3 km away
- 4,926 haGhabou1 November 2022 · 3 days · 10 km away
- 5,133 haGhabou2 November 2025 · 6 days · 13 km away
- 4,854 haGhabou12 November 2020 · 2 days · 14 km away
- 7,212 haGhabou30 October 2022 · 5 days · 19 km away
- 4,345 haGhabou10 January 2025 · 3 days · 22 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Ghabou fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 3 March 2022 and 4 March 2022: 2 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 2,811 hectares (28.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Ghabou (2,825 ha, 0.8 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 37.7 °C, humidity dropped to 12 % and gusts hit 48 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 67, class Extreme.
- Where does this data come from?
- From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Mauritania (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
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. 109 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 geoBoundaries ADM2 (Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Intergovernmental Organisations (CC BY 3.0 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.