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GH · Ghana · –

North Gonja fire, 10 December 2022 North Gonja

Out · last detection 19 Dec 2022, 13:33 UTC

The fire started on 10 December 2022 in North Gonja, Ghana, and satellites saw it burning for 12 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,181 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 200th largest in Savannah since 2016 (of 242 with a page). Number 91 in Ghana in 2022, of 118.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Nanumba North · 2016Mamprugu Moagduri · 2023North Gonja · 2019North Gonja · 2021

Burnt area
2,181ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
12days
10 Dec 2022 – 21 Dec 2022
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
10 Dec
2022
Heat detections
53
in a single hotspot: 179 MW
Danger at start
39
Very high · FWI index
Average daily power
247MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 10 Dec21 Dec
19 Dec 2022

How it evolved, day by day

13 Dec 2022 · 1 MW · 1 14 Dec 2022 · 13 MW · 2 16 Dec 2022 · 93 MW · 8 18 Dec 2022 · 458 MW · 20 19 Dec 2022 · 668 MW · 22
13 Dec 14 Dec 16 Dec 18 Dec 19 Dec

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
41km/h · peak gust
14%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

66% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 80 ha in 2016, 1,211 ha in 2019, 530 ha in 2020, 583 ha in 2021. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,432 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 1.4% of the area of London (22 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each town

  1. North Gonja where it started
    2,195 ha reached on 13 Dec
    0.4 %

Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance runs from the point marking the centre of each area to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.

People and buildings inside the perimeter

GHSL 2020
Built-up area< 0.1 ha
Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2020, satellite-based estimate).

This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned.

Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu

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)
10 Dec 34.0 °C 16 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
11 Dec 33.7 °C 14 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
12 Dec 34.7 °C 14 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
13 Dec 34.5 °C 18 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
14 Dec 35.2 °C 17 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
15 Dec 34.4 °C 15 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
16 Dec 34.0 °C 16 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
17 Dec 34.8 °C 17 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
18 Dec 33.8 °C 20 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
19 Dec 34.3 °C 18 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
20 Dec 32.5 °C 18 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
21 Dec 32.0 °C 17 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
22 Dec after 31.3 °C 21 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
23 Dec after 30.2 °C 20 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
24 Dec after 30.0 °C 19 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
25 Dec after 31.4 °C 23 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
26 Dec after 31.6 °C 23 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
27 Dec after 33.3 °C 23 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
28 Dec after 33.7 °C 21 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
29 Dec after 33.3 °C 20 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
30 Dec after 33.2 °C 21 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
31 Dec after 32.6 °C 16 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 38.9, a minimum humidity of 16% and 6 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 56.

FWI at the start 38.9
Minimum humidity 16 %
Days without rain 6
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Nanumba North fire, December 2016
2,042 ha 8 days FWI 39.7 Min. humidity 15 % 181 km away, in 2016

First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.

See its page Compare with this fire

What happened to them

9 days
median duration
2,252 ha
median area
100 %
went past 1,000 ha
1.3 mm
rain at the end (median; 1 of 56 had it)

It burned an area similar to its twins (2,181 ha against a median of 2,252 ha) and lasted 12 days, against 9 days.

In 55 of 56, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 1.3 mm.

This is a bank of analogues: it shows what usually happens, not what will happen. With fewer than 15 twins we give no figures. How we calculate it

How it ended

—first rain
—no rain in ten days
41km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 21 Dec, and not even 1 mm fell in the following ten days: it went out without rain. Twins with rain when they ended: 1 of 56, with a median of 1.3 mm.

Weather on this page: Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)

How a twin is chosen

  • Same area: fires that have already ended, less than 250 km from this one, since 2016.
  • Same start: we compare the FWI on the first day, the minimum humidity that day and the run of days without rain before it. The slider sets how much they may differ.
  • Only pages with final weather data (ERA5 reanalysis) calculated in the same way as this fire’s; agricultural and grass burns and pages with data under review are left out.
  • Fires burning at the same time as this one (a week before or after) are left out: they share the same spell of weather and do not count as a precedent.
  • They are sorted by similarity, and the outlines of the first five are drawn.

How we calculate it

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 3 Dec 2022
After · 28 Dec 2022

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 20 December 2022 the air beside the fire reached 323 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 127: 8.5 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak323 µg/m³
Days over the guideline7 days
PM10471 µg/m³
Optical depth0.85
15 Dec17 Dec19 Dec21 Dec
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 · 53Every 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?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 10 December 2022 to 21 December 2022 (12 days). The perimeter dates it from 17 December 2022 to 19 December 2022.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 2,181 hectares (21.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered North Gonja (2,195 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 35.2 °C, humidity dropped to 14 % and gusts hit 41 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 51, 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.
How did the fires that started in similar weather in this area end?
Fires less than 250 km away that started since 2016 with a similar FWI, humidity and dry spell: 56. Their median duration was 9 days and their median area 2,252 ha; 100 % went past 1,000 ha. In 55 of 56, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 1.3 mm.

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 · Emergency number and official warnings

Satellite cross-check

History of this page · 2 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
  1. Last day with fire: 19 December 2022 → 21 December 2022.
  2. Start date: 17 December 2022 → 10 December 2022.

RSS Changes to this page With cross-checks and a citable version

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.

How we know this
  • Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery.
  • Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 17 December 2022 to 19 December 2022. 53 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
  • We have not matched this page with any official record.
  • Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
  • Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2020, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.

How we build fire pages: methodology

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.