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North Gonja fire, November 2017 Sawla-Tuna-Kalba, North Gonja

Out · last detection 4 Dec 2017, 13:51 UTC

The fire started on 28 November 2017 in North Gonja, Ghana, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,505 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 89th largest in Savannah since 2016 (of 336 with a page). Number 39 in Ghana in 2017, of 116.

Burnt area
3,505ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
7days
28 Nov 2017 – 4 Dec 2017
Municipalities hit
2
districts
Started on
28 Nov
2017
Heat detections
115
in a single hotspot: 167 MW
Danger at start
40
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
1.6GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

4 Dec 2017
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 28 Nov4 Dec

How it evolved, day by day

2829301234

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
16%lowest humidity

It had gone 22 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

43% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,667 ha in 2016. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,522 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Sawla-Tuna-Kalba
    2,472 ha reached on 2 Dec
    0.6 %
  2. North Gonja where it started
    1,057 ha reached on 25 Nov
    0.2 %

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)
28 Nov 35.4 °C 17 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
29 Nov 34.5 °C 20 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
30 Nov 36.3 °C 20 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
1 Dec 36.9 °C 16 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
2 Dec 36.6 °C 16 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
3 Dec 36.2 °C 17 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
4 Dec 36.5 °C 16 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
5 Dec after 36.3 °C 14 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
6 Dec after 35.5 °C 16 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
7 Dec after 35.6 °C 18 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
8 Dec after 35.3 °C 22 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
9 Dec after 33.6 °C 19 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
10 Dec after 32.7 °C 15 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
11 Dec after 33.4 °C 16 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
12 Dec after 33.6 °C 15 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
13 Dec after 35.9 °C 25 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
14 Dec after 36.1 °C 27 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 21 Nov 2017
After · 11 Dec 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 · 115Every 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 North Gonja fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 28 November 2017 and 4 December 2017: 7 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 3,505 hectares (35.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Sawla-Tuna-Kalba (2,472 ha, 0.6 %); North Gonja (1,057 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.9 °C, humidity dropped to 16 % and gusts hit 37 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
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.