Burned area
satellite only2,236ha
Perimeter published by GWIS (Copernicus).
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus)
- Date
- 26 Dec 2022 – 1 Jan 2023
+− cross-check
No official record is matched to this page to compare it with.
GH · Ghana · –
North Gonja fire, 26 December 2022 North Gonja
Out · last detection 1 Jan 2023, 12:49 UTC
The fire started on 26 December 2022 in North Gonja, Ghana, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,236 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 190th largest in Savannah since 2016 (of 242 with a page). Number 85 in Ghana in 2022, of 118.
The power measured by the satellite is low (22.2 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.
Use this data
Compare with…
Use this data
Fire page data · version 2026-10-27matches the official recordwith caveatssatellite onlymodel
When copying, the sentence is
Tick the figures you want: they make up the lede and the CSV.
Duration by satellite
satellite only7days
26 Dec 2022 to 1 Jan 2023: first and last day with fire on the page.
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
- Date
- last detection: 1 Jan 2023, 12:49 UTC
+− cross-check
Satellites pass a few times a day and cloud or smoke can hide the fire: a lack of detections is not an official extinction. Each country’s emergency service declares a fire contained or out.
Start
satellite only26 Dec 2022
First day with fire seen by the satellites or the perimeter.
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
- Date
- 26 Dec 2022
+− cross-check
No official record is matched to this page, so the alert time and the cause are not known here.
Hotspots
satellite only43
VIIRS detections at 375 m. Most intense hotspot: 22 MW.
- Source
- NASA FIRMS · VIIRS (Suomi NPP)
- Date
- 26 Dec 2022 – 1 Jan 2023
+− cross-check
There is no official record to compare with. Each hotspot is a pixel detected in one satellite pass, not a separate fire.
The worst day
satellite only186MW
Total radiative power on 27 December 2022; hotspots that day: 18.
- Source
- NASA FIRMS · VIIRS (FRP)
- Date
- 27 Dec 2022
+− cross-check
Fire radiative power (FRP) measures the energy the fire gives off when the satellite passes. Added up by day, it compares intensity, not area.
Danger at the start
model40.0FWI · very high
Fire Weather Index (Canadian system) computed by WorldFires for the day the fire started. Consecutive days without rain before: 22.
- Source
- WorldFires calculation (Canadian FWI system)
- Date
- 26 Dec 2022, local noon
- Model
- ERA5 0,25° (ECMWF · Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com
+− cross-check
This is an index computed from weather model data, not a measurement of the fire nor an official warning. Danger warnings are issued by each country’s authority. Emergency number and official warnings
Weather during the fire
model32.6°C · 22% RH
High of 32.6 °C and minimum humidity of 22% on 28 December 2022; gusts of 37 km/h on 30 December 2022.
- Source
- weather model at the fire’s grid cell
- Date
- 26 Dec 2022 – 1 Jan 2023
- Model
- ERA5 0,25° (ECMWF · Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com
+− cross-check
These are model values for a cell of about 25 km, not from a weather station: they may differ from what was measured on the ground.
This page’s change log has been kept since 24 October 2026: every night what it publishes is compared and the difference is logged. Anything earlier is reconstructed from each source’s date and marked as reconstructed.
Show
-
· reconstructed weatherWeather and FWI computed from the ERA5 reanalysis
-
logLast day with fire: 31 December 2022 → 1 January 2023.
-
logStart date: 27 December 2022 → 26 December 2022.
-
· reconstructed GHSLPopulation and built-up area computed
What was saved on 27 October 2026
Every night a snapshot of what the page shows is saved. If anything changes, it appears in the list as a log entry.
- Area
- 2,236 ha
- Dates
- 26 Dec 2022 – 1 Jan 2023
- Name
- North Gonja
- Official record
- —
Versioned permanent link
https://worldfires.org/en/fire/north-gonja-2022-12-5?v=2026-10-27A version keeps the area, dates, name and official record; the area as it was logged (changes under 2% are not logged). The map, hotspots and weather always show today’s data.
Citation
A lede of about 60 words figures only, no adjectives
CSV for this fire north-gonja-2022-12-5.csv · daily, no individual hotspots
| fecha | focos_viirs | frp_mw | tmax_c | tmin_c | hr_min_pct | viento_max_kmh | racha_max_kmh | precip_mm | fwi | clase_fwi | dentro_del_incendio |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2022-12-26 | 1 | 13 | 30.6 | 16.6 | 24 | 12.2 | 30.6 | 0 | 40 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2022-12-27 | 18 | 186 | 32.2 | 18.6 | 23 | 13.2 | 32.4 | 0 | 41.2 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2022-12-28 | 9 | 26 | 32.6 | 19.2 | 22 | 14.8 | 33.5 | 0 | 43.1 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2022-12-29 | 7 | 16 | 32.1 | 17.6 | 22 | 14.5 | 34.6 | 0 | 43.1 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2022-12-30 | 4 | 15 | 32.2 | 19.1 | 21 | 16.1 | 37.1 | 0 | 45.1 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2022-12-31 | 2 | 2 | 31.3 | 17.8 | 17 | 15.5 | 37.1 | 0 | 44.7 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2023-01-01 | 2 | 7 | 30.6 | 16.9 | 19 | 14.1 | 34.9 | 0 | 43.5 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2023-01-02 | 0 | 0 | 30.6 | 15.8 | 19 | 12.8 | 31 | 0 | 42.5 | muy_alto | 0 |
| 2023-01-03 | 0 | 0 | 30.5 | 15.7 | 21 | 12.5 | 31.3 | 0 | 42.5 | muy_alto | 0 |
| 2023-01-04 | 0 | 0 | 31.2 | 17 | 22 | 12.2 | 29.9 | 0 | 42.3 | muy_alto | 0 |
| 2023-01-05 | 0 | 0 | 31.8 | 17.9 | 24 | 11.3 | 28.8 | 0 | 40.7 | muy_alto | 0 |
| 2023-01-06 | 0 | 0 | 32.3 | 19.8 | 24 | 12.5 | 31 | 0 | 42 | muy_alto | 0 |
| 2023-01-07 | 0 | 0 | 33.4 | 20.2 | 23 | 13.6 | 33.5 | 0 | 43.4 | muy_alto | 0 |
| 2023-01-08 | 0 | 0 | 34.9 | 19.3 | 20 | 13 | 32.4 | 0 | 43 | muy_alto | 0 |
| 2023-01-09 | 0 | 0 | 35.1 | 20.3 | 18 | 16.5 | 37.8 | 0 | 47.1 | muy_alto | 0 |
| 2023-01-10 | 0 | 0 | 33.3 | 19.9 | 18 | 14.8 | 35.3 | 0 | 45.5 | muy_alto | 0 |
| 2023-01-11 | 0 | 0 | 31.9 | 18.4 | 20 | 12.6 | 31.7 | 0 | 43.5 | muy_alto | 0 |
It is generated in your browser from this page’s data: one file per fire, aggregated by day and without individual hotspots.
Live widget for your story
It updates itself while the fire is still active and links to this page. Free, with the attribution shown at the bottom.
Sources for this page: GWIS (Copernicus), NASA FIRMS (VIIRS), ERA5 (ECMWF/Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0), GHSL (JRC). Open-Meteo.com · How we build fire pages: methodology
- Burnt area
- 2,236ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 7days
- 26 Dec 2022 – 1 Jan 2023
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- districts
- Started on
- 26 Dec
- 2022
- Heat detections
- 43
- in a single hotspot: 22 MW
- Danger at start
- 40
- Very high · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 38MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
HOTSPOTS BY DAY
26 Dec1 Jan
1 Jan 2023
How it evolved, day by day
27 Dec
30 Dec
1 Jan
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
33°high
37km/h · peak gust
17%lowest humidity
It had gone 22 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
86% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 10 ha in 2016, 1,872 ha in 2017, 189 ha in 2019, 565 ha in 2020. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,931 ha that had burned before.
- 962 ha North Gonja fire, December 2017 7,163 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 910 ha North Gonja fire, December 2017 5,044 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 41 ha North Gonja fire, December 2019 2,446 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
How big is it?
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Paris boundary: geoBoundaries · Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière (IGN-F) (Etalab Open License 2.0).
Madrid boundary: geoBoundaries · Open Data ESRI, IGN Central Registry of Cartography Area (CC BY 4.0).
Berlin boundary: geoBoundaries · Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy (dl-de/by-2-0).
This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.
What happened to each town
-
North Gonja where it started2,253 ha reached on 26 Dec0.5 %
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 2020Built-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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 26 Dec | 30.6 °C | 24 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 27 Dec | 32.2 °C | 23 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 28 Dec | 32.6 °C | 22 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 29 Dec | 32.1 °C | 22 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 30 Dec | 32.2 °C | 21 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 31 Dec | 31.3 °C | 17 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 1 Jan | 30.6 °C | 19 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 2 Jan after | 30.6 °C | 19 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 3 Jan after | 30.5 °C | 21 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 4 Jan after | 31.2 °C | 22 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 5 Jan after | 31.8 °C | 24 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 6 Jan after | 32.3 °C | 24 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 7 Jan after | 33.4 °C | 23 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 8 Jan after | 34.9 °C | 20 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 9 Jan after | 35.1 °C | 18 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 10 Jan after | 33.3 °C | 18 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 11 Jan after | 31.9 °C | 20 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
Its twins: fires that started in the same weather
It started with an FWI of 40.0, a minimum humidity of 24% and 22 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 18.
FWI at the start
40.0
Minimum humidity
24 %
Days without rain
22
this fire
chosen twins
rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar
Outlines of the closest twins
This fire · North Gonja fire, 26 December 2022
2,236 ha
7 days
FWI 40.0
Min. humidity 24 %
Sawla-Tuna-Kalba fire, December 2016
2,295 ha
3 days
FWI 40.3
Min. humidity 24 %
51 km away, in 2016
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
Central Gonja fire, December 2023
2,070 ha
13 days
FWI 40.2
Min. humidity 24 %
98 km away, in 2023
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
North Gonja fire, December 2023
3,669 ha
12 days
FWI 36.9
Min. humidity 24 %
28 km away, in 2023
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
West Gonja fire, December 2023
5,286 ha
14 days
FWI 40.1
Min. humidity 23 %
85 km away, in 2023
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
Karaga fire, December 2023
2,891 ha
12 days
FWI 41.6
Min. humidity 25 %
86 km away, in 2023
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
What happened to them
- 11 days
- median duration
- 2,413 ha
- median area
- 100 %
- went past 1,000 ha
- —
- rain at the end (median; 0 of 18 had it)
It burned an area similar to its twins (2,236 ha against a median of 2,413 ha) and lasted 7 days, against 11 days.
In none of them did 1 mm fall in the ten days after the end: they all went out without rain.
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
37km/h · max. gust
It was considered over on 1 Jan, and not even 1 mm fell in the following ten days: it went out without rain. None of its 18 twins had rain when they ended.
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.
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
↔
Before · 19 Dec 2022
After · 8 Jan 2023
Sentinel-2 did not pass over on that day. Try another date, or use false colour, which is daily.
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 · CopernicusOn 26 December 2022 the air beside the fire reached 73 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 48: 3.2 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
PM2.5 peak73 µg/m³
Days over the guideline10 days
PM10108 µg/m³
Optical depth0.93
WHO 15
25 Dec27 Dec29 Dec31 Dec2 Jan
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 · 43Every 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 time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
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 26 December 2022 to 1 January 2023 (7 days). The perimeter dates it from 27 December 2022 to 31 December 2022.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 2,236 hectares (22.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered North Gonja (2,253 ha, 0.5 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 32.6 °C, humidity dropped to 17 % and gusts hit 37 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 45, 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.
- 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: 18. Their median duration was 11 days and their median area 2,413 ha; 100 % went past 1,000 ha. In none of them did 1 mm fall in the ten days after the end: they all went out without rain.
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.
- Last day with fire: 31 December 2022 → 1 January 2023.
- Start date: 27 December 2022 → 26 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
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 27 December 2022 to 31 December 2022. 43 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.
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.