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Mion fire, January 2020 Mion, Gushegu, Yendi

Out · last detection 3 Feb 2020, 02:13 UTC

The fire started on 29 January 2020 in Mion, Ghana, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,476 hectares from heat detections, spread across 3 municipalities.

It is the 70th largest in Northern Region since 2016 (of 262 with a page). Number 30 in Ghana in 2020, of 111.

Burnt area
3,476ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
6days
29 Jan 2020 – 3 Feb 2020
Municipalities hit
3
districts
Started on
29 Jan
2020
Heat detections
75
in a single hotspot: 55 MW
Danger at start
52
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
1.1GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

3 Feb 2020
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 29 Jan3 Feb

How it evolved, day by day

29303113

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

The weather it burned in

36°high
42km/h · peak gust
10%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

91% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 279 ha in 2016, 1,409 ha in 2017, 1,236 ha in 2018, 2,147 ha in 2019. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 3,166 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Mion where it started
    3,473 ha reached on 29 Jan
    1.3 %
  2. Gushegu
    19 ha
    0.0 %
  3. Yendi
    8 ha
    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)
29 Jan 35.4 °C 12 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
30 Jan 36.1 °C 10 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
31 Jan 35.7 °C 12 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
1 Feb 36.0 °C 12 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
2 Feb 35.0 °C 12 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
3 Feb 33.9 °C 11 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
4 Feb after 34.4 °C 10 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
5 Feb after 34.5 °C 12 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
6 Feb after 34.4 °C 12 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
7 Feb after 35.3 °C 11 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
8 Feb after 35.6 °C 12 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
9 Feb after 35.5 °C 14 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
10 Feb after 34.8 °C 17 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
11 Feb after 33.8 °C 12 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
12 Feb after 34.0 °C 10 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
13 Feb after 34.1 °C 13 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 22 Jan 2020
After · 10 Feb 2020

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 · 75Every 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 29 January 2020 and 3 February 2020: 6 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 3,476 hectares (34.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 3 municipalities: Mion (3,473 ha, 1.3 %); Gushegu (19 ha, 0.0 %); Yendi (8 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.1 °C, humidity dropped to 10 % and gusts hit 42 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 60, 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.