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Offinso fire, February 2020 Offinso, Ejura-Sekyedumase, Offinso North

Out · last detection 20 Feb 2020, 01:55 UTC

The fire started on 6 February 2020 in Offinso, Ghana, and satellites saw it burning for 14 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 10,205 hectares from heat detections, spread across 3 municipalities.

It is the 7th largest in Ashanti since 2016 (of 103 with a page). Number 8 in Ghana in 2020, of 111.

Burnt area
10,205ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
14days
6 Feb 2020 – 19 Feb 2020
Municipalities hit
3
districts
Started on
6 Feb
2020
Heat detections
493
in a single hotspot: 109 MW
Danger at start
42
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
4.1GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

20 Feb 2020
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 6 Feb19 Feb

How it evolved, day by day

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

The weather it burned in

38°high
35km/h · peak gust
7%lowest humidity

It had gone 25 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.7 mm on 20 Feb.

This area had burned before

85% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 7,981 ha in 2016, 1,406 ha in 2017, 752 ha in 2019. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 8,696 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Offinso where it started
    5,611 ha reached on 6 Feb
    9.5 %
  2. Ejura-Sekyedumase
    3,544 ha reached on 6 Feb
    2.6 %
  3. Offinso North
    1,116 ha reached on 6 Feb
    1.2 %

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)
6 Feb 35.5 °C 19 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
7 Feb 36.3 °C 7 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
8 Feb 36.9 °C 9 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
9 Feb 35.9 °C 20 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
10 Feb 34.4 °C 39 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
11 Feb 35.6 °C 22 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
12 Feb 35.8 °C 11 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
13 Feb 35.5 °C 9 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
14 Feb 35.6 °C 11 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
15 Feb 37.4 °C 9 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
16 Feb 37.6 °C 14 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
17 Feb 37.5 °C 21 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
18 Feb 37.5 °C 29 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
19 Feb 36.3 °C 36 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
20 Feb after 36.4 °C 36 % 29 km/h 1.7 mm High 22

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 30 Jan 2020
After · 26 Feb 2020

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 · 493Every 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 Offinso fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 6 February 2020 and 19 February 2020: 14 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 10,205 hectares (102.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 3 municipalities: Offinso (5,611 ha, 9.5 %); Ejura-Sekyedumase (3,544 ha, 2.6 %); Offinso North (1,116 ha, 1.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.6 °C, humidity dropped to 7 % and gusts hit 35 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.

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.

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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.