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Mion fire, 16 January 2023 Mion, Yendi

Out · last detection 18 Jan 2023, 14:11 UTC

The fire started on 16 January 2023 in Mion, Ghana, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,570 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 63th largest in Northern Region since 2016 (of 262 with a page). Number 20 in Ghana in 2023, of 77.

Burnt area
3,570ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
3days
16 Jan 2023 – 18 Jan 2023
Municipalities hit
2
districts
Started on
16 Jan
2023
Heat detections
85
in a single hotspot: 36 MW
Danger at start
45
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
889MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

18 Jan 2023
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 16 Jan18 Jan

How it evolved, day by day

161718

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
34km/h · peak gust
18%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

97% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 40 ha in 2016, 1,713 ha in 2017, 1,203 ha in 2018, 1,670 ha in 2019, 1,988 ha in 2020, 824 ha in 2021, 706 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 3,448 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Mion where it started
    3,111 ha reached on 16 Jan
    1.1 %
  2. Yendi
    484 ha reached on 18 Jan
    0.3 %

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)
16 Jan 33.8 °C 22 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
17 Jan 34.2 °C 18 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
18 Jan 34.8 °C 19 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
19 Jan after 34.8 °C 19 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
20 Jan after 34.9 °C 19 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
21 Jan after 35.7 °C 21 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
22 Jan after 36.7 °C 19 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
23 Jan after 35.3 °C 37 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
24 Jan after 36.7 °C 32 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
25 Jan after 37.1 °C 28 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
26 Jan after 36.7 °C 28 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
27 Jan after 36.7 °C 26 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
28 Jan after 36.4 °C 21 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 9 Jan 2023
After · 25 Jan 2023

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 · 85Every 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 16 January 2023 and 18 January 2023: 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 3,570 hectares (35.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Mion (3,111 ha, 1.1 %); Yendi (484 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 34.8 °C, humidity dropped to 18 % and gusts hit 34 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 46, class Very high.
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.