Kunike fire, 14 April 2018 Kunike, Kunike Barina, Kafe Simiria
The fire started on 14 April 2018 in Kunike, Sierra Leone, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 1,725 hectares from heat detections, spread across 3 municipalities.
It is the 308th largest in Northern since 2016 (of 1112 with a page). Number 30 in Sierra Leone in 2018, of 104.
- Burnt area
- 1,725ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 5days
- 14 Apr 2018 – 18 Apr 2018
- Municipalities hit
- 3
- chiefdoms
- Started on
- 14 Apr
- 2018
- Heat detections
- 37
- in a single hotspot: 126 MW
- Energy released
- 1.1GW
- 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
64% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 704 ha in 2016, 839 ha in 2017. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,109 ha that had burned before.
- 704 ha Kunike fire, March 2016 1,144 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 620 ha Kunike fire, April 2017 1,029 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 220 ha Kunike fire, April 2017 1,245 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
Kunike where it started1,392 ha reached on 14 Apr1.7 %
-
334 ha reached on 15 Apr0.8 %
-
10 ha0.0 %
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 · 37Every 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 · 17 km away
- 11,897 haKunike28 March 2026 · 11 days · 28 km away
- 9,579 haNieni8 March 2022 · 16 days · 35 km away
- 7,462 haPaki MasabongApril 2026 · 23 days · 38 km away
- 6,826 haSandor26 March 2016 · 15 days · 39 km away
- 7,934 haValunia3 March 2019 · 19 days · 40 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Kunike fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 14 April 2018 and 18 April 2018: 5 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 1,725 hectares (17.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 3 municipalities: Kunike (1,392 ha, 1.7 %); Kunike Barina (334 ha, 0.8 %); Kafe Simiria (10 ha, 0.0 %).
- 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.