Kandi fire, 20 January 2023 Kandi
The fire started on 20 January 2023 in Kandi, Benin, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,393 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 143th largest in Alibori since 2016 (of 534 with a page). Number 22 in Benin in 2023, of 99.
- Burnt area
- 2,393ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 7days
- 20 Jan 2023 – 26 Jan 2023
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- communes
- Started on
- 20 Jan
- 2023
- Heat detections
- 58
- in a single hotspot: 100 MW
- Energy released
- 880MW
- 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
91% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 962 ha in 2016, 314 ha in 2017, 2,022 ha in 2019, 679 ha in 2021, 320 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,174 ha that had burned before.
- 1,192 ha Kandi fire, December 2019 2,401 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 962 ha Kandi fire, December 2016 1,321 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 830 ha Kandi fire, December 2019 3,107 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 488 ha Kandi fire, December 2021 7,488 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 314 ha Malanville fire, November 2017 1,424 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 299 ha Kandi fire, January 2022 2,471 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 106 ha Malanville fire, January 2021 1,603 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 85 ha Kandi fire, January 2021 4,045 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
Kandi where it started2,410 ha reached on 20 Jan0.7 %
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 · 58Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Kandi fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 20 January 2023 to 26 January 2023 (7 days). The perimeter dates it from 20 January 2023 to 22 January 2023.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 2,393 hectares (23.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Kandi (2,410 ha, 0.7 %).
- Where does this data come from?
- From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Benin (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
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.