Lei fire, February 2022 Sandor, Lei
The fire started on 10 February 2022 in Lei, Sierra Leone, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,721 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 32th largest in Eastern since 2016 (of 263 with a page). Number 21 in Sierra Leone in 2022, of 167.
The power measured by the satellite is low (19.3 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.
Compare with…
Suggestions: Sandor · 2019Lei · 2020Lei · 2020Sandor · 2016
- Burnt area
- 2,721ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 7days
- 10 Feb 2022 – 16 Feb 2022
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- chiefdoms
- Started on
- 10 Feb
- 2022
- Heat detections
- 90
- in a single hotspot: 19 MW
- Danger at start
- 39
- Very high · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 64MW
- 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 56 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.0 mm on 24 Feb.
This area had burned before
87% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 134 ha in 2016, 1,735 ha in 2019, 1,205 ha in 2020. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,356 ha that had burned before.
- 1,735 ha Sandor fire, February 2019 2,348 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 959 ha Lei fire, February 2020 1,284 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 246 ha Lei fire, January 2020 2,489 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 134 ha Sandor fire, January 2016 3,648 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
-
1,571 ha reached on 12 Feb1.1 %
-
Lei where it started1,168 ha reached on 10 Feb1.7 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 10 Feb | 32.4 °C | 15 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 11 Feb | 32.8 °C | 7 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 12 Feb | 31.3 °C | 10 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 13 Feb | 31.4 °C | 17 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 14 Feb | 32.4 °C | 9 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 15 Feb | 32.4 °C | 11 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 16 Feb | 31.9 °C | 21 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 17 Feb after | 30.5 °C | 28 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 18 Feb after | 30.4 °C | 25 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 19 Feb after | 31.5 °C | 21 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 20 Feb after | 32.8 °C | 19 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 21 Feb after | 30.7 °C | 32 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 22 Feb after | 31.1 °C | 28 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 23 Feb after | 30.9 °C | 32 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 24 Feb after | 29.0 °C | 53 % | 27 km/h | 1.0 mm | Moderate 17 |
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 |
|---|
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Lei fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 10 February 2022 and 16 February 2022: 7 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 2,721 hectares (27.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Sandor (1,571 ha, 1.1 %); Lei (1,168 ha, 1.7 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 32.8 °C, humidity dropped to 7 % and gusts hit 31 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 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
How we know this
- Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery.
- Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 90 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 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.