Manfran fire, 27 January 2024 Manfran, Firawa, Gbangbadou
The fire started on 27 January 2024 in Manfran, Guinea, and satellites saw it burning for 17 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,294 hectares from heat detections, spread across 3 municipalities.
It is the 63th largest in Faranah since 2016 (of 208 with a page). Number 26 in Guinea in 2024, of 117.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 3,294ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 17days
- 27 Jan 2024 – 12 Feb 2024
- Municipalities hit
- 3
- sub-prefectures
- Started on
- 27 Jan
- 2024
- Heat detections
- 113
- in a single hotspot: 31 MW
- Danger at start
- 47
- Very high · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 59MW
- 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 more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
100% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,483 ha in 2016, 987 ha in 2017, 795 ha in 2018, 2,258 ha in 2019, 2,004 ha in 2020, 800 ha in 2021, 2,065 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 3,281 ha that had burned before.
- 2,483 ha Firawa fire, January 2016 25,026 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,258 ha Manfran fire, January 2019 26,689 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,065 ha Manfran fire, January 2022 40,177 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 984 ha Manfran fire, January 2017 70,029 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 580 ha Firawa fire, January 2020 11,561 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 446 ha Firawa fire, February 2021 3,234 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 398 ha Manfran fire, January 2018 2,589 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 397 ha Firawa fire, January 2018 6,245 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
-
Manfran where it started3,080 ha reached on 27 Jan3.5 %
-
180 ha reached on 4 Feb0.5 %
-
54 ha reached on 1 Feb0.2 %
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.
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2 Feb | 35.5 °C | 16 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 3 Feb | 34.9 °C | 17 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 4 Feb | 34.5 °C | 17 % | 19 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 5 Feb | 35.6 °C | 14 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 6 Feb | 35.6 °C | 13 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 7 Feb | 35.3 °C | 13 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 8 Feb | 36.5 °C | 15 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 50 |
| 9 Feb | 37.1 °C | 16 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 10 Feb | 37.8 °C | 19 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 11 Feb | 35.9 °C | 21 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 12 Feb | 38.1 °C | 22 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 13 Feb after | 38.5 °C | 19 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 14 Feb after | 38.9 °C | 15 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 15 Feb after | 39.0 °C | 13 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 50 |
| 16 Feb after | 37.5 °C | 19 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 17 Feb after | 37.3 °C | 16 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 18 Feb after | 38.4 °C | 20 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 19 Feb after | 37.9 °C | 23 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 20 Feb after | 36.9 °C | 10 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
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.
The smoke
CAMS · CopernicusOn 9 February 2024 the air beside the fire reached 159 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 119: 7.9 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
Particles from the Copernicus CAMS model at the centre of the perimeter; these are not measurements in each town. The pale bar is the worst hour, the solid one the daily average.
Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS)
Detections table · 113Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 25,026 haFirawaJanuary 2016 · 22 days · 3 km away
- 40,177 haManfranJanuary 2022 · 35 days · 10 km away
- 19,542 haManfran24 January 2020 · 23 days · 12 km away
- 26,689 haManfranJanuary 2019 · 20 days · 15 km away
- 26,206 haManfran17 January 2021 · 18 days · 16 km away
- 70,029 haManfran19 January 2017 · 29 days · 28 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Manfran fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 27 January 2024 to 12 February 2024 (17 days). The perimeter dates it from 2 February 2024 to 10 February 2024.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 3,294 hectares (32.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 3 municipalities: Manfran (3,080 ha, 3.5 %); Firawa (180 ha, 0.5 %); Gbangbadou (54 ha, 0.2 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 37.8 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 32 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 50, class Extreme.
- 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
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: 10 February 2024 → 12 February 2024.
- Start date: 2 February 2024 → 27 January 2024.
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 2 February 2024 to 10 February 2024. 113 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 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.