Skip to content
worldfires
GN · Guinea · →

Kollet fire, April 2021 Kollet, Sogolon

Out · last detection 8 Apr 2021, 13:57 UTC

The fire started on 1 April 2021 in Kollet, Guinea, and satellites saw it burning for 8 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 111.

Burnt area
7,244ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
8days
1 Apr 2021 – 8 Apr 2021
Municipalities hit
2
sub-prefectures
Started on
1 Apr
2021
Heat detections
267
in a single hotspot: 0 MW
Danger at start
39
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
8.0GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

8 Apr 2021
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 1 Apr8 Apr

How it evolved, day by day

1345678

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

The weather it burned in

37°high
42km/h · peak gust
28%lowest humidity

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.

What happened to each town

  1. Kollet where it started
    6,079 ha
    12 %
  2. Sogolon
    1,211 ha
    2.1 %

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.

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 after 34.0 °C 42 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
10 Apr after 34.3 °C 42 % 36 km/h 0.4 mm High 32
11 Apr after 35.0 °C 40 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
12 Apr after 35.3 °C 36 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
13 Apr after 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.

Before · 25 Mar 2021
After · 15 Apr 2021

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 · 0Every 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 Guinea ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Kollet fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 1 April 2021 and 8 April 2021: 8 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 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

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.

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.