Kunike fire, 22 March 2018 Kunike, Kafe Simiria
The fire started on 22 March 2018 in Kunike, Sierra Leone, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,658 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 126th largest in Northern since 2016 (of 1112 with a page). Number 9 in Sierra Leone in 2018, of 104.
- Burnt area
- 2,658ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 8days
- 22 Mar 2018 – 29 Mar 2018
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- chiefdoms
- Started on
- 22 Mar
- 2018
- Heat detections
- 90
- in a single hotspot: 77 MW
- Energy released
- 1.0GW
- sum of detected power
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.
This area had burned before
21% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 552 ha in 2016, 117 ha in 2017. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 564 ha that had burned before.
- 276 ha Kunike fire, March 2016 1,061 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 269 ha Kunike fire, March 2016 1,002 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 117 ha Kunike fire, April 2017 3,184 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 7 ha Kunike fire, April 2016 2,775 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
Kunike where it started2,555 ha reached on 21 Mar3.2 %
-
121 ha reached on 27 Mar0.2 %
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.
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 · 90Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 7,753 haSambaya16 March 2022 · 8 days · 4 km away
- 11,897 haKunike28 March 2026 · 11 days · 16 km away
- 9,579 haNieni8 March 2022 · 16 days · 19 km away
- 6,826 haSandor26 March 2016 · 15 days · 27 km away
- 24,116 haSandor27 February 2019 · 22 days · 32 km away
- 6,232 haNieni4 March 2019 · 17 days · 36 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Kunike fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 22 March 2018 and 29 March 2018: 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 2,658 hectares (26.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Kunike (2,555 ha, 3.2 %); Kafe Simiria (121 ha, 0.2 %).
- Where does this data come from?
- From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Sierra Leone (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
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 4.0 (CC BY 4.0)). 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.