Kong fire, 20 December 2019 Kong, Bilimono
The fire started on 20 December 2019 in Kong, Côte d’Ivoire, and satellites saw it burning for 20 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,077 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 39th largest in Savanes since 2016 (of 276 with a page). Number 14 in Côte d’Ivoire in 2019, of 146.
Compare with…
Suggestions: Kong · 2018Kong · 2017Kong · 2016Bilimono · 2017
- Burnt area
- 3,077ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 20days
- 20 Dec 2019 – 8 Jan 2020
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- sub-prefectures
- Started on
- 20 Dec
- 2019
- Heat detections
- 95
- in a single hotspot: 68 MW
- Danger at start
- 34
- High · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 62MW
- 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 35 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
35% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 252 ha in 2016, 268 ha in 2017, 714 ha in 2018. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,089 ha that had burned before.
- 714 ha Kong fire, December 2018 1,152 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 268 ha Kong fire, December 2017 1,083 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 252 ha Kong fire, December 2016 1,428 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
-
Kong where it started2,656 ha reached on 21 Dec1.0 %
-
441 ha reached on 21 Dec0.1 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 20 Dec | 35.4 °C | 19 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 21 Dec | 34.6 °C | 34 % | 21 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 22 Dec | 35.0 °C | 21 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 23 Dec | 35.9 °C | 13 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 24 Dec | 35.3 °C | 16 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 25 Dec | 34.6 °C | 19 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 26 Dec | 34.6 °C | 20 % | 19 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 27 Dec | 34.4 °C | 21 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 28 Dec | 34.1 °C | 21 % | 19 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 29 Dec | 35.1 °C | 20 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 30 Dec | 34.6 °C | 16 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 31 Dec | 34.2 °C | 15 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 1 Jan | 33.5 °C | 15 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 2 Jan | 32.0 °C | 18 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 3 Jan | 29.8 °C | 19 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 4 Jan | 29.5 °C | 19 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 5 Jan | 31.7 °C | 19 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 6 Jan | 32.2 °C | 20 % | 21 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 7 Jan | 33.3 °C | 21 % | 17 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 8 Jan | 34.9 °C | 20 % | 19 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 9 Jan after | 35.2 °C | 20 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 10 Jan after | 35.5 °C | 18 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 11 Jan after | 34.7 °C | 22 % | 18 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 12 Jan after | 35.3 °C | 21 % | 19 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 13 Jan after | 35.5 °C | 14 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 14 Jan after | 33.6 °C | 14 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 15 Jan after | 35.2 °C | 15 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 16 Jan after | 35.5 °C | 17 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 17 Jan after | 35.8 °C | 19 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 18 Jan after | 34.3 °C | 19 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
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 · 95Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Kong fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 20 December 2019 to 8 January 2020 (20 days). The perimeter dates it from 25 December 2019 to 2 January 2020.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 3,077 hectares (30.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Kong (2,656 ha, 1.0 %); Bilimono (441 ha, 0.1 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 35.9 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 35 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 44, class Very high.
- Where does this data come from?
- From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Côte d’Ivoire (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.
Emergency number: 180 · Emergency number and official warnings ›
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 25 December 2019 to 2 January 2020. 95 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.