Guintéguéla fire, 16 January 2021 Guintéguéla, Gouiné
The fire started on 16 January 2021 in Guintéguéla, Côte d’Ivoire, and satellites saw it burning for 13 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,405 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 14th largest in Woroba since 2016 (of 128 with a page). Number 31 in Côte d’Ivoire in 2021, of 124.
The power measured by the satellite is low (22.1 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.
- Burnt area
- 2,405ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 13days
- 16 Jan 2021 – 28 Jan 2021
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- sub-prefectures
- Started on
- 16 Jan
- 2021
- Heat detections
- 68
- in a single hotspot: 22 MW
- Energy released
- 358MW
- sum of detected power
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.
This area had burned before
89% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 630 ha in 2016, 560 ha in 2017, 2,012 ha in 2018, 1,840 ha in 2019, 729 ha in 2020. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,133 ha that had burned before.
- 2,012 ha Gouiné fire, January 2018 9,706 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 899 ha Guintéguéla fire, December 2019 2,092 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 817 ha Gouiné fire, January 2019 15,503 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 709 ha Guintéguéla fire, January 2020 1,552 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 630 ha Guintéguéla fire, December 2016 3,618 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 560 ha Gouiné fire, January 2017 3,757 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 124 ha Guintéguéla fire, December 2019 2,669 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 20 ha Gouiné fire, January 2020 14,988 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
Guintéguéla where it started1,305 ha reached on 20 Jan0.9 %
-
1,116 ha reached on 18 Jan0.8 %
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.
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 · 68Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 36,986 haGouiné7 January 2026 · 28 days · 1 km away
- 11,688 haGouiné11 January 2022 · 22 days · 7 km away
- 15,503 haGouiné1 January 2019 · 22 days · 11 km away
- 24,388 haGouiné15 January 2021 · 19 days · 14 km away
- 14,988 haGouiné29 January 2020 · 13 days · 15 km away
- 21,060 haGouiné6 January 2024 · 32 days · 16 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Guintéguéla fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 16 January 2021 to 28 January 2021 (13 days). The perimeter dates it from 18 January 2021 to 23 January 2021.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 2,405 hectares (24.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Guintéguéla (1,305 ha, 0.9 %); Gouiné (1,116 ha, 0.8 %).
- 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
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
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.