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Mion fire, February 2026 Mion

Out · last detection 9 Feb 2026, 13:13 UTC

The fire started on 4 February 2026 in Mion, Ghana, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,808 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 55th largest in Northern Region since 2016 (of 262 with a page). Number 62 in Ghana in 2026, of 179.

Burnt area
3,808ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
6days
4 Feb 2026 – 9 Feb 2026
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
4 Feb
2026
Heat detections
66
in a single hotspot: 38 MW
Danger at start
42
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
833MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

9 Feb 2026
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 4 Feb9 Feb

How it evolved, day by day

4579

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

The weather it burned in

39°high
33km/h · peak gust
15%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

79% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,092 ha in 2016, 903 ha in 2017, 141 ha in 2018, 141 ha in 2019, 1,158 ha in 2020, 1,555 ha in 2022, 1,075 ha in 2024, 914 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 3,004 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Mion where it started
    3,832 ha reached on 31 Jan
    1.4 %

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)
4 Feb 38.3 °C 21 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
5 Feb 39.0 °C 15 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
6 Feb 37.0 °C 30 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
7 Feb 37.1 °C 33 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
8 Feb 38.3 °C 24 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
9 Feb 38.3 °C 24 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
10 Feb after 37.2 °C 31 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
11 Feb after 36.5 °C 33 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
12 Feb after 37.3 °C 33 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
13 Feb after 36.6 °C 37 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
14 Feb after 37.1 °C 37 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
15 Feb after 37.9 °C 29 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
16 Feb after 38.0 °C 14 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
17 Feb after 34.8 °C 14 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
18 Feb after 36.0 °C 10 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
19 Feb after 36.9 °C 13 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 28 Jan 2026
After · 16 Feb 2026

If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.

The smoke

CAMS · Copernicus

On 9 February 2026 the air beside the fire reached 54 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 33: 2.2 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak54 µg/m³
Days over the guideline8 days
PM10134 µg/m³
Optical depth0.67
23456789101112
Good Fair Moderate Poor Very poor Extremely poor

Particles from the Copernicus CAMS model at the centre of the perimeter; these are not measurements in each town. The pale bar is the worst hour, the solid one the daily average.

Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS)

Detections table · 66Every 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 4 February 2026 and 9 February 2026: 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 3,808 hectares (38.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Mion (3,832 ha, 1.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 39.0 °C, humidity dropped to 15 % and gusts hit 33 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 47, 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
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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.