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Karaga fire, 19 December 2025 Karaga

Out · last detection 29 Dec 2025, 13:00 UTC

The fire started on 19 December 2025 in Karaga, Ghana, and satellites saw it burning for 11 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,958 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 96th largest in Northern Region since 2016 (of 262 with a page). Number 72 in Ghana in 2025, of 144.

The power measured by the satellite is low (24.0 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
2,958ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
11days
19 Dec 2025 – 29 Dec 2025
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
19 Dec
2025
Heat detections
76
in a single hotspot: 24 MW
Danger at start
41
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
441MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

29 Dec 2025
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 19 Dec29 Dec

How it evolved, day by day

19202122232425272829

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

The weather it burned in

38°high
31km/h · peak gust
16%lowest humidity

It had gone 41 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

55% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 20 ha in 2016, 693 ha in 2020, 320 ha in 2021, 749 ha in 2022, 515 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,622 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Karaga where it started
    2,977 ha reached on 19 Dec
    1.0 %

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.

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 Rain Danger (FWI)
19 Dec 35.6 °C 19 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
20 Dec 35.7 °C 20 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
21 Dec 35.6 °C 22 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
22 Dec 36.4 °C 20 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
23 Dec 36.7 °C 21 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
24 Dec 36.0 °C 26 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
25 Dec 36.4 °C 28 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
26 Dec 37.6 °C 24 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
27 Dec 37.6 °C 22 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
28 Dec 37.9 °C 16 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
29 Dec 37.5 °C 24 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
30 Dec after 36.9 °C 25 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
31 Dec after 38.6 °C 20 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
1 Jan after 37.4 °C 20 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
2 Jan after 37.1 °C 23 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
3 Jan after 37.3 °C 30 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
4 Jan after 36.4 °C 31 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
5 Jan after 37.2 °C 26 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
6 Jan after 37.0 °C 27 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
7 Jan after 36.4 °C 27 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
8 Jan after 35.4 °C 15 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 12 Dec 2025
After · 5 Jan 2026

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 · Copernicus

On 18 December 2025 the air beside the fire reached 72 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 63: 4.2 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak72 µg/m³
Days over the guideline16 days
PM10391 µg/m³
Optical depth0.79
1718192021222324252627282930311
Good Fair Moderate Poor Very poor Extremely poor

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 · 76Every 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 Ghana ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Karaga fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 19 December 2025 and 29 December 2025: 11 days between the first and last heat detection of the perimeter.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 2,958 hectares (29.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Karaga (2,977 ha, 1.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.9 °C, humidity dropped to 16 % and gusts hit 31 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 42, class Very high.
Where does this data come from?
From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Ghana (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: 112

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
What do you think is wrong?

We will only use your email to reply about this report. Privacy. This is not an emergency service: if there is a fire now, call 112.

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 (Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)). 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.