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BJ · Benin · →

Kandi fire, 20 December 2023 Kandi

Out · last detection 24 Dec 2023, 12:55 UTC

The fire started on 20 December 2023 in Kandi, Benin, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 1,492 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 283th largest in Alibori since 2016 (of 534 with a page). Number 55 in Benin in 2023, of 99.

Burnt area
1,492ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
5days
20 Dec 2023 – 24 Dec 2023
Municipalities hit
1
communes
Started on
20 Dec
2023
Heat detections
43
in a single hotspot: 34 MW
Energy released
475MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

24 Dec 2023
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 20 Dec24 Dec

How it evolved, day by day

20212224

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

This area had burned before

93% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 592 ha in 2016, 985 ha in 2017, 354 ha in 2018, 75 ha in 2019, 916 ha in 2020. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,389 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Kandi where it started
    1,503 ha reached on 20 Dec
    0.4 %

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.

Before · 13 Dec 2023
After · 31 Dec 2023

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 · 43Every 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 Benin ›

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 December 2023 to 24 December 2023 (5 days). The perimeter dates it from 20 December 2023 to 21 December 2023.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 1,492 hectares (14.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Kandi (1,503 ha, 0.4 %).
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.

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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.