Kollet fire, March 2021 Kollet, Sogolon
The fire started on 31 March 2021 in Kollet, Guinea, and satellites saw it burning for 14 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 7,244 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 18th largest in Kindia since 2016 (of 242 with a page). Number 6 in Guinea in 2021, of 113.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 7,244ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 14days
- 31 Mar 2021 – 13 Apr 2021
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- sub-prefectures
- Started on
- 31 Mar
- 2021
- Heat detections
- 291
- in a single hotspot: 330 MW
- Danger at start
- 39
- Very high · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 710MW
- detected power per day, on average
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.
The weather it burned in
It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.1 mm on 16 Apr.
This area had burned before
86% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 3,197 ha in 2016, 1,491 ha in 2017, 732 ha in 2018, 3,034 ha in 2019, 1,604 ha in 2020. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 6,248 ha that had burned before.
- 2,206 ha Kollet fire, April 2016 2,742 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,138 ha Kollet fire, April 2019 3,618 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 473 ha Kollet fire, April 2018 2,844 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 259 ha Sogolon fire, April 2018 4,388 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 134 ha Kollet fire, April 2016 3,413 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
How big is it?
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Paris boundary: geoBoundaries · Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière (IGN-F) (Etalab Open License 2.0).
Madrid boundary: geoBoundaries · Open Data ESRI, IGN Central Registry of Cartography Area (CC BY 4.0).
Berlin boundary: geoBoundaries · Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy (dl-de/by-2-0).
This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.
What happened to each town
-
Kollet where it started6,079 ha reached on 1 Apr12 %
-
1,211 ha reached on 31 Mar2.1 %
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 | Rain | Danger (FWI) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 Apr | 37.0 °C | 28 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 2 Apr | 36.1 °C | 29 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 3 Apr | 35.3 °C | 32 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 4 Apr | 34.9 °C | 34 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 5 Apr | 35.6 °C | 34 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 6 Apr | 35.2 °C | 38 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 7 Apr | 35.6 °C | 35 % | 39 km/h | 2.2 mm | High 23 |
| 8 Apr | 35.4 °C | 35 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 9 Apr | 34.0 °C | 42 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 10 Apr | 34.3 °C | 42 % | 36 km/h | 0.4 mm | High 32 |
| 11 Apr | 35.0 °C | 40 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 12 Apr | 35.3 °C | 36 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 13 Apr | 34.5 °C | 42 % | 31 km/h | 0.4 mm | High 28 |
| 14 Apr after | 32.1 °C | 54 % | 32 km/h | 0.8 mm | Moderate 18 |
| 15 Apr after | 33.9 °C | 41 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 16 Apr after | 35.2 °C | 37 % | 35 km/h | 1.1 mm | High 27 |
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 · 291Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 9,669 haSogolonApril 2026 · 21 days · 17 km away
- 7,334 haSogolon5 April 2017 · 23 days · 17 km away
- 9,219 haSogolon6 April 2017 · 22 days · 23 km away
- 11,473 haTondon7 April 2016 · 31 days · 31 km away
- 9,116 haThionthian7 April 2016 · 20 days · 32 km away
- 7,952 haThionthian12 April 2017 · 13 days · 34 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Kollet fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 31 March 2021 to 13 April 2021 (14 days). The perimeter dates it from 1 April 2021 to 8 April 2021.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 7,244 hectares (72.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Kollet (6,079 ha, 12 %); Sogolon (1,211 ha, 2.1 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 37.0 °C, humidity dropped to 28 % and gusts hit 42 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 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
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.
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
How we know this
- Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery; 2 polygons grouped in this page.
- Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 1 April 2021 to 8 April 2021. 291 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.
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.