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Mion fire, 9 February 2019 Mion, Gushegu

Out · last detection 13 Feb 2019, 12:36 UTC

The fire started on 9 February 2019 in Mion, Ghana, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,737 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 122th largest in Northern Region since 2016 (of 262 with a page). Number 55 in Ghana in 2019, of 127.

Burnt area
2,737ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
4days
9 Feb 2019 – 12 Feb 2019
Municipalities hit
2
districts
Started on
9 Feb
2019
Heat detections
79
in a single hotspot: 68 MW
Danger at start
57
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
696MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

13 Feb 2019
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 9 Feb12 Feb

How it evolved, day by day

910111213

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

The weather it burned in

37°high
37km/h · peak gust
8%lowest humidity

It had gone 6 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

75% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,725 ha in 2017, 965 ha in 2018. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,066 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Mion where it started
    2,471 ha reached on 9 Feb
    0.9 %
  2. Gushegu
    284 ha reached on 11 Feb
    0.1 %

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)
9 Feb 37.3 °C 8 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
10 Feb 37.0 °C 8 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
11 Feb 35.1 °C 11 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
12 Feb 35.9 °C 11 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
13 Feb after 36.4 °C 11 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
14 Feb after 37.0 °C 8 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
15 Feb after 36.2 °C 9 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
16 Feb after 36.9 °C 10 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
17 Feb after 37.0 °C 16 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
18 Feb after 37.1 °C 19 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
19 Feb after 37.5 °C 25 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
20 Feb after 36.7 °C 33 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
21 Feb after 37.9 °C 25 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
22 Feb after 38.9 °C 13 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 2 Feb 2019
After · 19 Feb 2019

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 · 79Every 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 9 February 2019 and 12 February 2019: 4 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 2,737 hectares (27.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Mion (2,471 ha, 0.9 %); Gushegu (284 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.3 °C, humidity dropped to 8 % and gusts hit 37 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 61, 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.