Karimama fire, 3 December 2019 Karimama
The fire started on 3 December 2019 in Karimama, Benin, and satellites saw it burning for 10 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 1,025 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 515th largest in Alibori since 2016 (of 534 with a page). Number 113 in Benin in 2019, of 120.
The power measured by the satellite is low (15.8 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
- 1,025ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 10days
- 3 Dec 2019 – 12 Dec 2019
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- communes
- Started on
- 3 Dec
- 2019
- Heat detections
- 29
- in a single hotspot: 16 MW
- Energy released
- 201MW
- 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
8% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 77 ha in 2016, 6 ha in 2017.
What happened to each town
-
Karimama where it started990 ha reached on 3 Dec0.2 %
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 · 29Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 13,413 haKarimama22 December 2025 · 11 days · 22 km away
- 13,889 haKarimama18 November 2017 · 16 days · 25 km away
- 9,886 haKarimama16 December 2019 · 15 days · 29 km away
- 13,713 haKarimama3 December 2025 · 17 days · 34 km away
- 12,978 haDiapaga19 November 2025 · 12 days · 34 km away
- 15,140 haKarimama29 November 2021 · 8 days · 38 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Karimama fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 3 December 2019 to 12 December 2019 (10 days). The perimeter dates it from 3 December 2019 to 5 December 2019.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 1,025 hectares (10.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Karimama (990 ha, 0.2 %).
- 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.