Kassadou fire, January 2023 Kassadou, Bolodou
The fire started on 8 January 2023 in Kassadou, Guinea, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,650 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 91th largest in Nzérékoré since 2016 (of 241 with a page). Number 27 in Guinea in 2023, of 79.
The power measured by the satellite is low (28.6 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
- 2,650ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 5days
- 8 Jan 2023 – 12 Jan 2023
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- sub-prefectures
- Started on
- 8 Jan
- 2023
- Heat detections
- 80
- in a single hotspot: 29 MW
- Energy released
- 381MW
- 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
79% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 804 ha in 2017, 1,166 ha in 2018, 1,218 ha in 2019, 1,341 ha in 2020, 1,209 ha in 2021. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,093 ha that had burned before.
What happened to each town
-
Kassadou where it started1,408 ha reached on 8 Jan1.8 %
-
1,259 ha reached on 9 Jan2.4 %
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.
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 · 80Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 4,899 haBolodou16 February 2026 · 8 days · 1 km away
- 4,773 haBolodou1 February 2017 · 7 days · 9 km away
- 4,684 haBolodou28 January 2016 · 5 days · 9 km away
- 9,247 haBolodouJanuary 2020 · 7 days · 11 km away
- 7,743 haBolodou29 January 2016 · 7 days · 14 km away
- 7,992 haBolodou6 February 2026 · 17 days · 16 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Kassadou fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 8 January 2023 and 12 January 2023: 5 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 2,650 hectares (26.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Kassadou (1,408 ha, 1.8 %); Bolodou (1,259 ha, 2.4 %).
- 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
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 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.