Kasunko fire, January 2020 Kasunko
The fire started on 11 January 2020 in Kasunko, Sierra Leone, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 1,028 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 1037th largest in Northern since 2016 (of 1112 with a page). Number 133 in Sierra Leone in 2020, of 147.
The power measured by the satellite is low (14.3 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
- 1,028ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 4days
- 11 Jan 2020 – 14 Jan 2020
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- chiefdoms
- Started on
- 11 Jan
- 2020
- Heat detections
- 16
- in a single hotspot: 14 MW
- Energy released
- 97MW
- 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
95% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 205 ha in 2016, 682 ha in 2017, 233 ha in 2018, 393 ha in 2019. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 980 ha that had burned before.
- 682 ha Kasunko fire, January 2017 3,908 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 393 ha Kasunko fire, January 2019 4,768 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 205 ha Kasunko fire, January 2016 1,697 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 186 ha Kasunko fire, January 2018 2,706 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 47 ha Kasunko fire, January 2018 2,092 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
Kasunko where it started1,035 ha reached on 4 Jan1.1 %
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 · 16Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 6,058 haKasunko24 January 2026 · 5 days · 1 km away
- 4,768 haKasunkoJanuary 2019 · 9 days · 4 km away
- 4,443 haKasunko3 February 2017 · 7 days · 10 km away
- 4,232 haTambakha31 January 2017 · 8 days · 14 km away
- 4,462 haTambakha29 January 2016 · 5 days · 18 km away
- 5,742 haTambakha11 February 2019 · 14 days · 21 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Kasunko fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 11 January 2020 and 14 January 2020: 4 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 1,028 hectares (10.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Kasunko (1,035 ha, 1.1 %).
- Where does this data come from?
- From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Sierra Leone (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 4.0 (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.