North Gonja fire, 2 December 2025 North Gonja, Sawla-Tuna-Kalba
The fire started on 2 December 2025 in North Gonja, Ghana, and satellites saw it burning for 14 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 8,466 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 17th largest in Savannah since 2016 (of 335 with a page). Number 13 in Ghana in 2025, of 144.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 8,466ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 14days
- 2 Dec 2025 – 15 Dec 2025
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- districts
- Started on
- 2 Dec
- 2025
- Heat detections
- 226
- in a single hotspot: 148 MW
- Danger at start
- 24
- High · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 330MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone 23 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
88% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 623 ha in 2016, 3,319 ha in 2017, 430 ha in 2018, 3,005 ha in 2019, 1,644 ha in 2020, 2,038 ha in 2021, 809 ha in 2022, 2,177 ha in 2023, 2,292 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 7,430 ha that had burned before.
- 2,177 ha North Gonja fire, December 2023 10,048 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,578 ha Sawla-Tuna-Kalba fire, November 2017 35,022 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,082 ha Sawla-Tuna-Kalba fire, December 2019 2,710 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,042 ha North Gonja fire, December 2021 2,154 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 945 ha North Gonja fire, November 2017 3,505 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 703 ha North Gonja fire, December 2021 7,176 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 430 ha Sawla-Tuna-Kalba fire, December 2018 2,210 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 293 ha North Gonja fire, December 2021 2,437 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 started6,164 ha reached on 2 Dec1.3 %
-
2,357 ha reached on 4 Dec0.6 %
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 2025Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2025, 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. The GHSL 2025 epoch is a projection made from 2020 and earlier data.
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2 Dec | 35.4 °C | 39 % | 16 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 3 Dec | 35.8 °C | 26 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 4 Dec | 35.1 °C | 18 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 5 Dec | 36.5 °C | 18 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 6 Dec | 35.7 °C | 18 % | 19 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 7 Dec | 35.5 °C | 24 % | 17 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 8 Dec | 35.7 °C | 25 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 9 Dec | 35.5 °C | 35 % | 18 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 10 Dec | 35.9 °C | 24 % | 19 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 11 Dec | 35.7 °C | 22 % | 18 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 12 Dec | 35.5 °C | 30 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 13 Dec | 33.3 °C | 35 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 14 Dec | 34.8 °C | 42 % | 27 km/h | 0.2 mm | High 31 |
| 15 Dec | 32.8 °C | 24 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 16 Dec after | 32.5 °C | 27 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 17 Dec after | 34.2 °C | 23 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 18 Dec after | 34.4 °C | 25 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 19 Dec after | 34.8 °C | 21 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 20 Dec after | 34.7 °C | 22 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 21 Dec after | 35.4 °C | 22 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 22 Dec after | 36.0 °C | 23 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 23 Dec after | 35.9 °C | 22 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 24 Dec after | 35.6 °C | 28 % | 17 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 25 Dec after | 35.7 °C | 29 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
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 6 December 2025 the air beside the fire reached 114 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 76: 5.1 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
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 · 226Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 10,048 haNorth Gonja3 December 2023 · 18 days · 7 km away
- 35,022 haSawla-Tuna-Kalba15 November 2017 · 28 days · 18 km away
- 16,387 haWest Gonja19 December 2024 · 11 days · 25 km away
- 13,191 haWest Gonja14 December 2019 · 23 days · 26 km away
- 13,051 haWest Gonja19 December 2020 · 15 days · 29 km away
- 16,132 haWest Gonja5 December 2023 · 29 days · 33 km away
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 2 December 2025 to 15 December 2025 (14 days). The perimeter dates it from 3 December 2025 to 8 December 2025.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 8,466 hectares (84.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: North Gonja (6,164 ha, 1.3 %); Sawla-Tuna-Kalba (2,357 ha, 0.6 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 36.5 °C, humidity dropped to 18 % and gusts hit 36 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 39, 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 · 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: 8 December 2025 → 15 December 2025.
- Start date: 3 December 2025 → 2 December 2025.
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 3 December 2025 to 8 December 2025. 226 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 2025, 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.