How long did the Groot Henar fire last?

According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 15 February 2024 to 3 March 2024 (18 days). The perimeter dates it from 22 February 2024 to 3 March 2024.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 4,777 hectares (47.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 3 municipalities: Westelijke Polders (2,482 ha, 2.0 %); Groot Henar (2,262 ha, 1.0 %); Oostelijke Polders (65 ha, 0.2 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 32.6 °C, humidity dropped to 51 % and gusts hit 48 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 13, class Moderate.

Where does this data come from?

From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Suriname (geoBoundaries). It is not an official report.

SR · Suriname · 2024-02-15 → 2024-03-03

Groot Henar fire, 15 February 2024 Westelijke Polders, Groot Henar, Oostelijke Polders

Out · last detection 3 Mar 2024, 17:45 UTC

The fire started on 15 February 2024 in Groot Henar, Suriname, and satellites saw it burning for 18 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,777 hectares from heat detections, spread across 3 municipalities.

It is the 2th largest in Nickerie since 2016 (of 21 with a page). Number 3 in Suriname in 2024, of 24.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Groot Henar · 2024 East Berbice-Corentyne · 2024 Wageningen · 2024 Wageningen · 2024

Burnt area: 4,777ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 18days; 15 Feb 2024 – 3 Mar 2024
Municipalities hit: 3; districts
Started on: 15 Feb; 2024
Heat detections: 248; in a single hotspot: 85 MW
Danger at start: 5; Low · FWI index
Average daily power: 204MW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 15 Feb3 Mar

Play back 3 Mar 2024

How it evolved, day by day

15 Feb 20 Feb 21 Feb 22 Feb 25 Feb 27 Feb 29 Feb 2 Mar

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

The weather it burned in

33°high

48km/h · peak gust

51%lowest humidity

It had gone 0 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 14.1 mm on 6 Mar.

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

How big is it?

It burned the equivalent of 3% of the area of London (48 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

Westelijke Polders

2,482 ha reached on 20 Feb

2.0 %
Groot Henar where it started

2,262 ha reached on 15 Feb

1.0 %
Oostelijke Polders

65 ha reached on 20 Feb

0.2 %

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 2025

Built-up area< 0.1 ha

Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2025, 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. The GHSL 2025 epoch is a projection made from 2020 and earlier data.

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)
15 Feb	32.0 °C	53 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 5
16 Feb	30.6 °C	62 %	48 km/h	0.4 mm	Low 6
17 Feb	30.2 °C	66 %	44 km/h	1.2 mm	Very low 4
18 Feb	31.8 °C	58 %	43 km/h	1.4 mm	Very low 4
19 Feb	31.0 °C	58 %	43 km/h	1.6 mm	Very low 4
20 Feb	32.0 °C	51 %	41 km/h	0.2 mm	Low 8
21 Feb	32.0 °C	52 %	41 km/h	0.1 mm	Low 10
22 Feb	31.7 °C	54 %	38 km/h	0.4 mm	Low 10
23 Feb	31.3 °C	58 %	39 km/h	1.2 mm	Low 6
24 Feb	31.9 °C	57 %	40 km/h	0.9 mm	Low 7
25 Feb	31.6 °C	55 %	45 km/h	0.9 mm	Low 9
26 Feb	31.6 °C	58 %	40 km/h	0.3 mm	Low 9
27 Feb	31.3 °C	58 %	40 km/h	0.6 mm	Low 9
28 Feb	31.2 °C	54 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 11
29 Feb	31.2 °C	57 %	38 km/h	0.3 mm	Low 11
1 Mar	31.7 °C	54 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 12
2 Mar	32.6 °C	53 %	41 km/h	0.6 mm	Moderate 13
3 Mar	30.6 °C	59 %	37 km/h	0.2 mm	Moderate 12
4 Mar after	30.7 °C	59 %	32 km/h	0.8 mm	Low 9
5 Mar after	31.7 °C	59 %	36 km/h	0.7 mm	Low 10
6 Mar after	29.2 °C	75 %	37 km/h	14.1 mm	Very low 0

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 8 Feb 2024

After · 10 Mar 2024

Before After

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 23 February 2024 the air beside the fire reached 35 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 26: 1.7 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak35 µg/m³

Days over the guideline5 days

PM1054 µg/m³

Optical depth0.74

WHO 15

20212223242526272829123456

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 · 248Every 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

All fires in Suriname ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Groot Henar fire last?: According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 15 February 2024 to 3 March 2024 (18 days). The perimeter dates it from 22 February 2024 to 3 March 2024.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 4,777 hectares (47.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 3 municipalities: Westelijke Polders (2,482 ha, 2.0 %); Groot Henar (2,262 ha, 1.0 %); Oostelijke Polders (65 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 32.6 °C, humidity dropped to 51 % and gusts hit 48 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 13, class Moderate.
Where does this data come from?: From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Suriname (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: 110 · Emergency number and official warnings ›

Satellite cross-check

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

History of this page · 1 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.

25 October 2026 Start date: 22 February 2024 → 15 February 2024.

RSS Changes to this page

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?

Dates or duration Place or towns Burned area Name It was not a wildfire Same fire as another page Something else

What really happened?

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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 110.

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 22 February 2024 to 3 March 2024. 248 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 2025, 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 ADM2 (Public Domain). 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.

Where it burned