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Manfran fire, 2 February 2024 Manfran, Firawa, Gbangbadou

Out · last detection 10 Feb 2024, 14:36 UTC

The fire started on 2 February 2024 in Manfran, Guinea, and satellites saw it burning for 9 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 118.

Burnt area
3,294ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
9days
2 Feb 2024 – 10 Feb 2024
Municipalities hit
3
sub-prefectures
Started on
2 Feb
2024
Heat detections
113
in a single hotspot: 31 MW
Danger at start
47
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
772MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

10 Feb 2024
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 2 Feb10 Feb

How it evolved, day by day

2345678910

Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.

The weather it burned in

38°high
32km/h · peak gust
13%lowest humidity

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.

What happened to each town

  1. Manfran where it started
    3,080 ha reached on 27 Jan
    3.5 %
  2. Firawa
    180 ha reached on 4 Feb
    0.5 %
  3. Gbangbadou
    54 ha reached on 1 Feb
    0.2 %

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.

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 after 35.9 °C 21 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
12 Feb after 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.

Before · 26 Jan 2024
After · 17 Feb 2024

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 · 113Every 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 timeSatelliteFRP (MW)LatLon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Guinea ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Manfran fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 2 February 2024 and 10 February 2024: 9 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 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

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.

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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.