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Kouankan fire, January 2020 Sengbédou, Kouankan, Sérédou

Out · last detection 17 Feb 2020, 13:57 UTC

The fire started on 31 January 2020 in Kouankan, Guinea, and satellites saw it burning for 18 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,035 hectares from heat detections, spread across 3 municipalities.

It is the 44th largest in Nzérékoré since 2016 (of 241 with a page). Number 20 in Guinea in 2020, of 120.

Burnt area
4,035ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
18days
31 Jan 2020 – 17 Feb 2020
Municipalities hit
3
sub-prefectures
Started on
31 Jan
2020
Heat detections
328
in a single hotspot: 122 MW
Danger at start
28
High · FWI index
Energy released
2.4GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

17 Feb 2020
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 31 Jan17 Feb

How it evolved, day by day

311345678910121314151617

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

The weather it burned in

34°high
40km/h · peak gust
10%lowest humidity

It had gone 8 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 4.9 mm on 20 Feb.

This area had burned before

95% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 4,418 ha in 2016, 265 ha in 2017, 2,072 ha in 2018, 3,296 ha in 2019. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 3,822 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Sengbédou
    2,210 ha reached on 3 Feb
    3.7 %
  2. Kouankan where it started
    1,550 ha reached on 31 Jan
    1.2 %
  3. Sérédou
    301 ha reached on 13 Feb
    0.4 %

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.

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)
31 Jan 33.0 °C 14 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
1 Feb 31.6 °C 21 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
2 Feb 32.4 °C 16 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
3 Feb 31.8 °C 14 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
4 Feb 32.2 °C 12 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
5 Feb 31.4 °C 15 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
6 Feb 31.9 °C 17 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
7 Feb 32.3 °C 14 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
8 Feb 32.0 °C 12 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
9 Feb 32.1 °C 14 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
10 Feb 31.5 °C 27 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
11 Feb 31.2 °C 27 % 36 km/h 0.8 mm High 26
12 Feb 31.4 °C 15 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
13 Feb 32.7 °C 11 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
14 Feb 32.6 °C 10 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
15 Feb 32.6 °C 16 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
16 Feb 33.7 °C 11 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
17 Feb 34.0 °C 15 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
18 Feb after 32.5 °C 28 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
19 Feb after 32.9 °C 28 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
20 Feb after 31.3 °C 44 % 27 km/h 4.9 mm Very low 5

Before and after, from space

Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.

Before · 24 Jan 2020
After · 24 Feb 2020

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 · 328Every 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 Kouankan fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 31 January 2020 and 17 February 2020: 18 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 4,035 hectares (40.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 3 municipalities: Sengbédou (2,210 ha, 3.7 %); Kouankan (1,550 ha, 1.2 %); Sérédou (301 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 34.0 °C, humidity dropped to 10 % and gusts hit 40 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.

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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.