Gouiné fire, 30 December 2019 Gouiné, Kamalo, Gbonné
The fire started on 30 December 2019 in Gouiné, Côte d’Ivoire, and satellites saw it burning for 18 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,721 hectares from heat detections, spread across 3 municipalities.
It is the 24th largest in Montagnes since 2016 (of 123 with a page). Number 8 in Côte d’Ivoire in 2019, of 146.
Compare with…
Suggestions: Gouiné · 2018Gouiné · 2017Gouiné · 2016Gouiné · 2017
- Burnt area
- 4,721ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 18days
- 30 Dec 2019 – 16 Jan 2020
- Municipalities hit
- 3
- sub-prefectures
- Started on
- 30 Dec
- 2019
- Heat detections
- 179
- in a single hotspot: 67 MW
- Danger at start
- 35
- High · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 126MW
- 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 46 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 4.2 mm on 22 Jan.
This area had burned before
92% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 706 ha in 2016, 1,915 ha in 2017, 2,866 ha in 2018, 566 ha in 2019. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 4,353 ha that had burned before.
- 3,432 ha Gouiné fire, December 2018 7,208 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,284 ha Gouiné fire, December 2017 25,038 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 706 ha Gouiné fire, December 2016 1,056 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 560 ha Gouiné fire, January 2017 1,196 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 70 ha Gouiné fire, January 2017 6,269 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
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
-
Gouiné where it started4,508 ha reached on 2 Jan3.3 %
-
243 ha reached on 30 Dec0.6 %
-
0 ha0.0 %
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.
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4 Jan | 31.4 °C | 19 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 5 Jan | 33.3 °C | 18 % | 21 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 6 Jan | 33.5 °C | 19 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 7 Jan | 34.8 °C | 20 % | 17 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 8 Jan | 35.3 °C | 21 % | 17 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 9 Jan | 35.0 °C | 32 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 10 Jan | 36.4 °C | 19 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 11 Jan | 35.2 °C | 33 % | 21 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 12 Jan | 36.0 °C | 30 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 13 Jan | 35.6 °C | 15 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 14 Jan | 34.6 °C | 11 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 15 Jan | 35.2 °C | 14 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 16 Jan | 36.4 °C | 17 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 17 Jan after | 36.4 °C | 16 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 18 Jan after | 35.6 °C | 16 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 19 Jan after | 35.4 °C | 15 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 20 Jan after | 36.1 °C | 27 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 21 Jan after | 35.2 °C | 41 % | 31 km/h | 0.2 mm | High 29 |
| 22 Jan after | 31.0 °C | 57 % | 27 km/h | 4.2 mm | Very low 4 |
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 · 179Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 10,668 haSifiéDecember 2022 · 23 days · 2 km away
- 25,038 haGouinéDecember 2017 · 30 days · 3 km away
- 14,988 haGouiné25 January 2020 · 23 days · 15 km away
- 24,388 haGouiné14 January 2021 · 22 days · 16 km away
- 21,060 haGouiné6 January 2024 · 32 days · 17 km away
- 15,503 haGouiné25 December 2018 · 29 days · 19 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Gouiné fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 30 December 2019 to 16 January 2020 (18 days). The perimeter dates it from 4 January 2020 to 9 January 2020.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 4,721 hectares (47.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 3 municipalities: Gouiné (4,508 ha, 3.3 %); Kamalo (243 ha, 0.6 %); Gbonné (0 ha, 0.0 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 36.4 °C, humidity dropped to 11 % and gusts hit 31 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 42, class Very high.
- Where does this data come from?
- From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Côte d’Ivoire (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: 180 · Emergency number and official warnings ›
Satellite cross-check
History of this page · 2 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
- Last day with fire: 15 January 2020 → 16 January 2020.
- Start date: 4 January 2020 → 30 December 2019.
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 adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 4 January 2020 to 9 January 2020. 179 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 ADM3 (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.