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CI · Côte d’Ivoire · –

Gouiné fire, 17 January 2020 Gouiné

Out · last detection 21 Jan 2020, 14:03 UTC

The fire started on 17 January 2020 in Gouiné, Côte d’Ivoire, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,496 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 24th largest in Montagnes since 2016 (of 113 with a page). Number 10 in Côte d’Ivoire in 2020, of 159.

Burnt area
4,496ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
5days
17 Jan 2020 – 21 Jan 2020
Municipalities hit
1
sub-prefectures
Started on
17 Jan
2020
Heat detections
115
in a single hotspot: 53 MW
Danger at start
41
Very high · FWI index
Average daily power
328MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 17 Jan21 Jan
21 Jan 2020

How it evolved, day by day

18 Jan 2020 · 76 MW · 11 19 Jan 2020 · 978 MW · 56 20 Jan 2020 · 255 MW · 47 21 Jan 2020 · 3 MW · 1
18 Jan 19 Jan 20 Jan 21 Jan

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

The weather it burned in

36°high
32km/h · peak gust
15%lowest humidity

It had gone 59 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

94% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,926 ha in 2016, 3,657 ha in 2017, 498 ha in 2018, 1,274 ha in 2019. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 4,212 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 2.8% of the area of London (45 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each town

  1. Gouiné where it started
    4,525 ha reached on 18 Jan
    3.3 %

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 2020
Built-up area< 0.1 ha
Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2020, 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)
17 Jan 36.3 °C 16 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
18 Jan 35.4 °C 16 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
19 Jan 35.2 °C 15 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
20 Jan 35.9 °C 27 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
21 Jan 35.1 °C 41 % 31 km/h 0.2 mm High 29
22 Jan after 30.8 °C 56 % 27 km/h 4.2 mm Very low 4

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 40.7, a minimum humidity of 16% and 59 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 18.

FWI at the start 40.7
Minimum humidity 16 %
Days without rain 59
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Guintéguéla fire, January 2022
1,185 ha 4 days FWI 38.8 Min. humidity 16 % 17 km away, in 2022

First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.

What happened to them

7 days
median duration
1,447 ha
median area
100 %
went past 1,000 ha
4.0 mm
rain at the end (median; 7 of 18 had it)

It was 3.1 times larger than the median of its twins and lasted 5 days, against 7 days.

Only 1 of its 18 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 11 of 18, 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 4.0 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

4.2 mmfirst rain
22 Janthe day after it ended
32km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 21 Jan, and on 22 Jan 4.2 mm fell. We do not know whether the rain or the firefighters put it out. Twins with rain when they ended: 7 of 18, with a median of 4.0 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.

How we calculate it

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 10 Jan 2020
After · 28 Jan 2020

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 · 115Every 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 Côte d’Ivoire

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Gouiné fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 17 January 2020 to 21 January 2020 (5 days). The perimeter dates it from 17 January 2020 to 20 January 2020.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 4,496 hectares (45.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Gouiné (4,525 ha, 3.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.3 °C, humidity dropped to 15 % and gusts hit 32 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 44, 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.
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: 18. Their median duration was 7 days and their median area 1,447 ha; 100 % went past 1,000 ha. Only 1 of its 18 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 11 of 18, 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 4.0 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.

Emergency number: 180 · Emergency number and official warnings

Satellite cross-check

History of this page Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.

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 180.

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 17 January 2020 to 20 January 2020. 115 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 2020, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.

How we build fire pages: methodology

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.