Burned area
satellite only2,858ha
Perimeter published by GWIS (Copernicus).
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus)
- Date
- 24 Jan 2022 – 2 Feb 2022
+− cross-check
No official record is matched to this page to compare it with.
TD · Chad · –
Kouh Ouest fire, January 2022 Kouh Ouest, La Nya Pendé
Out · last detection 2 Feb 2022, 11:50 UTC
The fire started on 24 January 2022 in Kouh Ouest, Chad, and satellites saw it burning for 10 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,858 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 18th largest in Logone Oriental since 2016 (of 40 with a page). Number 48 in Chad in 2022, of 102.
Use this data
Compare with…
Use this data
Fire page data · version 2026-10-27matches the official recordwith caveatssatellite onlymodel
When copying, the sentence is
Tick the figures you want: they make up the lede and the CSV.
Duration by satellite
satellite only10days
24 Jan 2022 to 2 Feb 2022: first and last day with fire on the page.
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
- Date
- last detection: 2 Feb 2022, 11:50 UTC
+− cross-check
Satellites pass a few times a day and cloud or smoke can hide the fire: a lack of detections is not an official extinction. Each country’s emergency service declares a fire contained or out.
Start
satellite only24 Jan 2022
First day with fire seen by the satellites or the perimeter.
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
- Date
- 24 Jan 2022
+− cross-check
No official record is matched to this page, so the alert time and the cause are not known here.
Hotspots
satellite only80
VIIRS detections at 375 m. Most intense hotspot: 33 MW.
- Source
- NASA FIRMS · VIIRS (Suomi NPP)
- Date
- 24 Jan 2022 – 2 Feb 2022
+− cross-check
There is no official record to compare with. Each hotspot is a pixel detected in one satellite pass, not a separate fire.
The worst day
satellite only249MW
Total radiative power on 28 January 2022; hotspots that day: 21.
- Source
- NASA FIRMS · VIIRS (FRP)
- Date
- 28 Jan 2022
+− cross-check
Fire radiative power (FRP) measures the energy the fire gives off when the satellite passes. Added up by day, it compares intensity, not area.
Danger at the start
model44.0FWI · very high
Fire Weather Index (Canadian system) computed by WorldFires for the day the fire started. Consecutive days without rain before: 60.
- Source
- WorldFires calculation (Canadian FWI system)
- Date
- 24 Jan 2022, local noon
- Model
- ERA5 0,25° (ECMWF · Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com
+− cross-check
This is an index computed from weather model data, not a measurement of the fire nor an official warning. Danger warnings are issued by each country’s authority. Emergency number and official warnings
Weather during the fire
model34.1°C · 16% RH
High of 34.1 °C and minimum humidity of 16% on 24 January 2022; gusts of 33 km/h on 25 January 2022.
- Source
- weather model at the fire’s grid cell
- Date
- 24 Jan 2022 – 2 Feb 2022
- Model
- ERA5 0,25° (ECMWF · Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com
+− cross-check
These are model values for a cell of about 25 km, not from a weather station: they may differ from what was measured on the ground.
This page’s change log has been kept since 24 October 2026: every night what it publishes is compared and the difference is logged. Anything earlier is reconstructed from each source’s date and marked as reconstructed.
Show
-
· reconstructed weatherWeather and FWI computed from the ERA5 reanalysis
-
logLast day with fire: 31 January 2022 → 2 February 2022.
-
logStart date: 25 January 2022 → 24 January 2022.
-
· reconstructed GHSLPopulation and built-up area computed
What was saved on 27 October 2026
Every night a snapshot of what the page shows is saved. If anything changes, it appears in the list as a log entry.
- Area
- 2,858 ha
- Dates
- 24 Jan 2022 – 2 Feb 2022
- Name
- Kouh Ouest
- Official record
- —
Versioned permanent link
https://worldfires.org/en/fire/kouh-ouest-2022-01?v=2026-10-27A version keeps the area, dates, name and official record; the area as it was logged (changes under 2% are not logged). The map, hotspots and weather always show today’s data.
Citation
A lede of about 60 words figures only, no adjectives
CSV for this fire kouh-ouest-2022-01.csv · daily, no individual hotspots
| fecha | focos_viirs | frp_mw | tmax_c | tmin_c | hr_min_pct | viento_max_kmh | racha_max_kmh | precip_mm | fwi | clase_fwi | dentro_del_incendio |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2022-01-24 | 0 | 0 | 34.1 | 17.9 | 16 | 12.1 | 25.6 | 0 | 44 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2022-01-25 | 5 | 52 | 33.4 | 18.1 | 18 | 14.3 | 33.1 | 0 | 46.5 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2022-01-26 | 13 | 66 | 33.2 | 18.6 | 18 | 13.9 | 30.2 | 0 | 46.3 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2022-01-27 | 20 | 160 | 33.3 | 18.5 | 20 | 12 | 28.1 | 0 | 44.6 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2022-01-28 | 21 | 249 | 33.6 | 18.1 | 18 | 14.5 | 28.4 | 0 | 47.5 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2022-01-29 | 10 | 51 | 32.9 | 17.1 | 20 | 12.5 | 29.5 | 0 | 45.6 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2022-01-30 | 0 | 0 | 33.1 | 17 | 19 | 14.2 | 27 | 0 | 47.6 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2022-01-31 | 5 | 81 | 32 | 17.3 | 16 | 14.3 | 30.2 | 0 | 48 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2022-02-01 | 5 | 17 | 31.5 | 17.5 | 16 | 10.8 | 27.4 | 0 | 44.5 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2022-02-02 | 1 | 24 | 33.3 | 18.7 | 19 | 12 | 23 | 0 | 45.9 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2022-02-03 | 0 | 0 | 32.2 | 18.5 | 15 | 14.7 | 34.2 | 0 | 49.2 | muy_alto | 0 |
| 2022-02-04 | 0 | 0 | 31.8 | 17.9 | 12 | 15.3 | 34.9 | 0 | 50.1 | extremo | 0 |
| 2022-02-05 | 0 | 0 | 31.9 | 17.7 | 19 | 13.2 | 31 | 0 | 47 | muy_alto | 0 |
| 2022-02-06 | 0 | 0 | 34.2 | 17.6 | 17 | 12.4 | 26.6 | 0 | 46.3 | muy_alto | 0 |
| 2022-02-07 | 0 | 0 | 36.1 | 18.9 | 14 | 11.3 | 26.6 | 0 | 46 | muy_alto | 0 |
| 2022-02-08 | 0 | 0 | 36.4 | 18 | 15 | 10.7 | 23 | 0 | 45.5 | muy_alto | 0 |
| 2022-02-09 | 0 | 0 | 35.8 | 18.5 | 15 | 12.1 | 28.4 | 0 | 47.3 | muy_alto | 0 |
| 2022-02-10 | 0 | 0 | 36 | 19.2 | 13 | 12.8 | 28.8 | 0 | 48.5 | muy_alto | 0 |
| 2022-02-11 | 0 | 0 | 34.9 | 19.2 | 15 | 12 | 27.7 | 0 | 47.8 | muy_alto | 0 |
| 2022-02-12 | 0 | 0 | 35.3 | 18.4 | 16 | 11.8 | 27.4 | 0 | 47.8 | muy_alto | 0 |
It is generated in your browser from this page’s data: one file per fire, aggregated by day and without individual hotspots.
Live widget for your story
It updates itself while the fire is still active and links to this page. Free, with the attribution shown at the bottom.
Sources for this page: GWIS (Copernicus), NASA FIRMS (VIIRS), ERA5 (ECMWF/Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0), GHSL (JRC). Open-Meteo.com · How we build fire pages: methodology
- Burnt area
- 2,858ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 10days
- 24 Jan 2022 – 2 Feb 2022
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- departments
- Started on
- 24 Jan
- 2022
- Heat detections
- 80
- in a single hotspot: 33 MW
- Danger at start
- 44
- Very high · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 87MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
HOTSPOTS BY DAY
24 Jan2 Feb
2 Feb 2022
How it evolved, day by day
25 Jan
28 Jan
1 Feb
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
33km/h · peak gust
16%lowest humidity
It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
98% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,942 ha in 2016, 1,157 ha in 2017, 1,658 ha in 2018, 1,590 ha in 2019, 1,338 ha in 2020, 2,069 ha in 2021. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,789 ha that had burned before.
- 1,899 ha Kouh Ouest fire, January 2016 7,172 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,658 ha La Nya Pendé fire, January 2018 4,224 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,338 ha Kouh Ouest fire, February 2020 3,883 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,135 ha Kouh Ouest fire, January 2019 2,130 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 455 ha Kouh Ouest fire, January 2019 2,110 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 43 ha Kouh Ouest fire, January 2016 9,575 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
-
Kouh Ouest where it started2,387 ha reached on 25 Jan1.1 %
-
487 ha reached on 25 Jan0.1 %
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.
People and buildings inside the perimeter
GHSL 2020Built-up area< 0.1 ha
Residents< 20
Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2020, satellite-based estimate).
This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned.
Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu
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)
Started with 60 days without rain: 44 % of the area in Chad
| Day | High | Min. humidity | Peak gust | Rain | Danger (FWI) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 24 Jan | 34.1 °C | 16 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 25 Jan | 33.4 °C | 18 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 26 Jan | 33.2 °C | 18 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 27 Jan | 33.3 °C | 20 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 28 Jan | 33.6 °C | 18 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 29 Jan | 32.9 °C | 20 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 30 Jan | 33.1 °C | 19 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 31 Jan | 32.0 °C | 16 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 1 Feb | 31.5 °C | 16 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 2 Feb | 33.3 °C | 19 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 3 Feb after | 32.2 °C | 15 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 4 Feb after | 31.8 °C | 12 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 50 |
| 5 Feb after | 31.9 °C | 19 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 6 Feb after | 34.2 °C | 17 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 7 Feb after | 36.1 °C | 14 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 8 Feb after | 36.4 °C | 15 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 9 Feb after | 35.8 °C | 15 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 10 Feb after | 36.0 °C | 13 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 11 Feb after | 34.9 °C | 15 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 12 Feb after | 35.3 °C | 16 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
Its twins: fires that started in the same weather
It started with an FWI of 44.0, a minimum humidity of 16% and more than two months without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 18.
FWI at the start
44.0
Minimum humidity
16 %
Days without rain
60+
this fire
chosen twins
rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar
Outlines of the closest twins
This fire · Kouh Ouest fire, January 2022
2,858 ha
10 days
FWI 44.0
Min. humidity 16 %
Kouh Ouest fire, January 2016
2,011 ha
22 days
FWI 44.5
Min. humidity 15 %
27 km away, in 2016
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
Kouh Ouest fire, January 2016
2,372 ha
15 days
FWI 42.0
Min. humidity 16 %
30 km away, in 2016
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
Kouh Ouest fire, January 2019
3,962 ha
15 days
FWI 44.0
Min. humidity 18 %
19 km away, in 2019
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
Kouh Ouest fire, January 2016
7,172 ha
24 days
FWI 47.9
Min. humidity 16 %
4 km away, in 2016
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
Monts de Lam fire, January 2017
2,297 ha
19 days
FWI 45.4
Min. humidity 17 %
74 km away, in 2017
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
What happened to them
- 14 days
- median duration
- 2,338 ha
- median area
- 100 %
- went past 1,000 ha
- —
- rain at the end (median; 0 of 18 had it)
It burned an area similar to its twins (2,858 ha against a median of 2,338 ha) and lasted 10 days, against 14 days.
In none of them did 1 mm fall in the ten days after the end: they all went out without rain.
This is a bank of analogues: it shows what usually happens, not what will happen. With fewer than 15 twins we give no figures. How we calculate it
How it ended
—first rain
—no rain in ten days
33km/h · max. gust
It was considered over on 2 Feb, and not even 1 mm fell in the following ten days: it went out without rain. None of its 18 twins had rain when they ended.
Weather on this page: Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)
How a twin is chosen
- Same area: fires that have already ended, less than 250 km from this one, since 2016.
- Same start: we compare the FWI on the first day, the minimum humidity that day and the run of days without rain before it. The slider sets how much they may differ.
- Only pages with final weather data (ERA5 reanalysis) calculated in the same way as this fire’s; agricultural and grass burns and pages with data under review are left out.
- Fires burning at the same time as this one (a week before or after) are left out: they share the same spell of weather and do not count as a precedent.
- They are sorted by similarity, and the outlines of the first five are drawn.
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
↔
Before · 17 Jan 2022
After · 9 Feb 2022
Sentinel-2 did not pass over on that day. Try another date, or use false colour, which is daily.
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 · 80Every 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 time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 4,224 haLa Nya PendéJanuary 2018 · 13 days · 1 km away
- 7,172 haKouh Ouest13 January 2016 · 24 days · 4 km away
- 9,575 haKouh Ouest20 January 2016 · 27 days · 9 km away
- 6,116 haKouh Ouest15 January 2016 · 26 days · 15 km away
- 3,962 haKouh Ouest11 January 2019 · 15 days · 19 km away
- 5,884 haKouh Ouest15 January 2021 · 21 days · 20 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Kouh Ouest fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 24 January 2022 to 2 February 2022 (10 days). The perimeter dates it from 25 January 2022 to 31 January 2022.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 2,858 hectares (28.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Kouh Ouest (2,387 ha, 1.1 %); La Nya Pendé (487 ha, 0.1 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 34.1 °C, humidity dropped to 16 % and gusts hit 33 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 48, class Very high.
- Where does this data come from?
- From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Chad (geoBoundaries). It is not an official report.
- How did the fires that started in similar weather in this area end?
- Fires less than 250 km away that started since 2016 with a similar FWI, humidity and dry spell: 18. Their median duration was 14 days and their median area 2,338 ha; 100 % went past 1,000 ha. In none of them did 1 mm fall in the ten days after the end: they all went out without rain.
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 · 2 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
- Last day with fire: 31 January 2022 → 2 February 2022.
- Start date: 25 January 2022 → 24 January 2022.
RSS Changes to this page With cross-checks and a citable version
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.
- Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 25 January 2022 to 31 January 2022. 80 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.
- Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2020, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.
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 ADM2 (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.