How long did the Kanfarandé fire last?

According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 28 April 2016 to 5 May 2016 (8 days). The perimeter dates it from 1 May 2016 to 5 May 2016.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 2,590 hectares (25.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Kanfarandé (2,606 ha, 1.7 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 36.3 °C, humidity dropped to 39 % and gusts hit 42 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 35, class High.

Where does this data come from?

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

GN · Guinea · 2016-04-28 → 2016-05-05

Kanfarandé fire, April 2016 Kanfarandé

Out · last detection 5 May 2016, 14:30 UTC

The fire started on 28 April 2016 in Kanfarandé, Guinea, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,590 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 126th largest in Boké since 2016 (of 237 with a page). Number 84 in Guinea in 2016, of 173.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Sansalé · 2020 Sansalé · 2016 Sansalé · 2026

Burnt area: 2,590ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 8days; 28 Apr 2016 – 5 May 2016
Municipalities hit: 1; sub-prefectures
Started on: 28 Apr; 2016
Heat detections: 57; in a single hotspot: 210 MW
Danger at start: 34; High · FWI index
Average daily power: 332MW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 28 Apr5 May

Play back 5 May 2016

How it evolved, day by day

28 Apr 29 Apr 1 May 3 May 4 May 5 May

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

The weather it burned in

36°high

42km/h · peak gust

39%lowest humidity

It had gone 7 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

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 1.6% of the area of London (26 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

Kanfarandé where it started

2,606 ha reached on 28 Apr

1.7 %

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.

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	Danger (FWI)
1 May	36.0 °C	45 %	42 km/h	High 34
2 May	32.9 °C	45 %	38 km/h	High 32
3 May	33.5 °C	44 %	39 km/h	High 32
4 May	33.5 °C	44 %	30 km/h	High 30
5 May	36.3 °C	39 %	40 km/h	High 35
6 May after	34.2 °C	45 %	39 km/h	High 33
7 May after	33.6 °C	40 %	38 km/h	High 34
8 May after	34.8 °C	37 %	37 km/h	High 33
9 May after	36.5 °C	35 %	35 km/h	High 34
10 May after	36.7 °C	36 %	38 km/h	High 36
11 May after	36.8 °C	40 %	29 km/h	High 34
12 May after	35.9 °C	43 %	37 km/h	High 36
13 May after	33.6 °C	46 %	36 km/h	High 34
14 May after	33.9 °C	48 %	40 km/h	High 33
15 May after	33.7 °C	53 %	40 km/h	High 30

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 21 Apr 2016

After · 12 May 2016

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.

Detections table · 57Every 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 Guinea ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Kanfarandé fire last?: According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 28 April 2016 to 5 May 2016 (8 days). The perimeter dates it from 1 May 2016 to 5 May 2016.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 2,590 hectares (25.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Kanfarandé (2,606 ha, 1.7 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 36.3 °C, humidity dropped to 39 % and gusts hit 42 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 35, class High.
Where does this data come from?: From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Guinea (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

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

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

No changes since 24 October 2026.

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.

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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 1 May 2016 to 5 May 2016. 57 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.

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 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.

Where it burned