Kandi fire, 9 January 2025 Kandi
The fire started on 9 January 2025 in Kandi, Benin, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 1,069 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 474th largest in Alibori since 2016 (of 534 with a page). Number 153 in Benin in 2025, of 165.
The power measured by the satellite is low (24.4 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
- 1,069ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 6days
- 9 Jan 2025 – 14 Jan 2025
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- communes
- Started on
- 9 Jan
- 2025
- Heat detections
- 25
- in a single hotspot: 24 MW
- Energy released
- 202MW
- 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
90% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 18 ha in 2016, 238 ha in 2017, 9 ha in 2020, 733 ha in 2021, 481 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 957 ha that had burned before.
- 576 ha Kandi fire, December 2021 1,199 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 481 ha Kandi fire, February 2023 1,059 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 238 ha Kandi fire, December 2017 4,502 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 156 ha Kandi fire, December 2021 1,962 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 18 ha Kandi fire, November 2016 1,759 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 9 ha Kandi fire, December 2020 1,038 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
Kandi where it started1,076 ha reached on 9 Jan0.3 %
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.
The smoke
CAMS · CopernicusOn 11 January 2025 the air beside the fire reached 116 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 87: 5.8 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
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 · 25Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 5,163 haKandi8 January 2023 · 8 days · 6 km away
- 7,488 haKandi15 December 2021 · 12 days · 13 km away
- 5,024 haKandi20 December 2017 · 7 days · 15 km away
- 9,325 haKarimama19 November 2017 · 12 days · 26 km away
- 5,149 haKarimama18 December 2021 · 8 days · 31 km away
- 4,867 haKarimama26 December 2018 · 9 days · 35 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Kandi fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 9 January 2025 to 14 January 2025 (6 days). The perimeter dates it from 9 January 2025 to 10 January 2025.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 1,069 hectares (10.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Kandi (1,076 ha, 0.3 %).
- 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.