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Mion fire, January 2017 Mion, Gushegu, Saboba

Out · last detection 25 Jan 2017, 13:20 UTC

The fire started on 23 January 2017 in Mion, Ghana, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 8,269 hectares from heat detections, spread across 4 municipalities.

It is the 8th largest in Northern Region since 2016 (of 262 with a page). Number 7 in Ghana in 2017, of 116.

Burnt area
8,269ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
3days
23 Jan 2017 – 25 Jan 2017
Municipalities hit
4
districts
Started on
23 Jan
2017
Heat detections
207
in a single hotspot: 436 MW
Danger at start
45
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
2.6GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

25 Jan 2017
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 23 Jan25 Jan

How it evolved, day by day

232425

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

The weather it burned in

35°high
32km/h · peak gust
7%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

0% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 3 ha in 2016.

What happened to each town

  1. Mion where it started
    4,188 ha reached on 23 Jan
    1.5 %
  2. Gushegu
    4,078 ha reached on 23 Jan
    1.5 %
  3. Saboba
    49 ha reached on 24 Jan
    0.0 %
  4. Yendi
    9 ha reached on 23 Jan
    0.0 %

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.

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)
23 Jan 33.0 °C 12 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
24 Jan 33.9 °C 10 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
25 Jan 35.2 °C 7 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
26 Jan after 35.3 °C 7 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
27 Jan after 35.3 °C 9 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
28 Jan after 36.0 °C 10 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
29 Jan after 36.4 °C 9 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
30 Jan after 36.7 °C 9 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
31 Jan after 36.6 °C 11 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
1 Feb after 35.3 °C 30 % 41 km/h 0.3 mm Extreme 52
2 Feb after 35.9 °C 34 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
3 Feb after 35.7 °C 15 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
4 Feb after 35.7 °C 9 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52

Before and after, from space

Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.

Before · 16 Jan 2017
After · 1 Feb 2017

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 · 207Every 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 Ghana ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Mion fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 23 January 2017 and 25 January 2017: 3 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 8,269 hectares (82.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 4 municipalities: Mion (4,188 ha, 1.5 %); Gushegu (4,078 ha, 1.5 %); Saboba (49 ha, 0.0 %); Yendi (9 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 35.2 °C, humidity dropped to 7 % and gusts hit 32 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 54, class Extreme.
Where does this data come from?
From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Ghana (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.

Emergency number: 112

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
What do you think is wrong?

We will only use your email to reply about this report. Privacy. This is not an emergency service: if there is a fire now, call 112.

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 ADM2 (Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (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.