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Offinso North fire, February 2016 Offinso North, Tano South, Ahafo Ano South East

Out · last detection 12 Feb 2016, 13:45 UTC

The fire started on 1 February 2016 in Offinso North, Ghana, and satellites saw it burning for 12 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,860 hectares from heat detections, spread across 3 municipalities.

It is the 18th largest in Ashanti since 2016 (of 103 with a page). Number 14 in Ghana in 2016, of 122.

Burnt area
5,860ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
12days
1 Feb 2016 – 12 Feb 2016
Municipalities hit
3
districts
Started on
1 Feb
2016
Heat detections
377
in a single hotspot: 81 MW
Danger at start
46
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
2.6GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

12 Feb 2016
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 1 Feb12 Feb

How it evolved, day by day

123456789101112

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
34km/h · peak gust
7%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

What happened to each town

  1. Offinso North where it started
    5,304 ha reached on 26 Jan
    5.6 %
  2. Tano South
    497 ha reached on 1 Feb
    1.0 %
  3. Ahafo Ano South East
    95 ha reached on 12 Feb
    0.1 %

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)
1 Feb 34.6 °C 7 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
2 Feb 35.0 °C 8 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
3 Feb 35.4 °C 7 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
4 Feb 35.1 °C 18 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
5 Feb 34.3 °C 15 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
6 Feb 37.2 °C 12 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
7 Feb 36.1 °C 16 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
8 Feb 35.9 °C 14 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
9 Feb 35.8 °C 14 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
10 Feb 36.2 °C 7 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
11 Feb 36.3 °C 8 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
12 Feb 36.6 °C 12 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
13 Feb after 35.2 °C 15 % 17 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
14 Feb after 35.9 °C 26 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
15 Feb after 35.4 °C 31 % 31 km/h 0.5 mm Very high 41
16 Feb after 35.3 °C 31 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
17 Feb after 37.8 °C 26 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
18 Feb after 36.5 °C 31 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
19 Feb after 37.4 °C 28 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
20 Feb after 37.9 °C 24 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
21 Feb after 36.7 °C 33 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
22 Feb after 38.2 °C 31 % 31 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 · 25 Jan 2016
After · 19 Feb 2016

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 · 377Every 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 North fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 1 February 2016 and 12 February 2016: 12 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 5,860 hectares (58.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 3 municipalities: Offinso North (5,304 ha, 5.6 %); Tano South (497 ha, 1.0 %); Ahafo Ano South East (95 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.2 °C, humidity dropped to 7 % and gusts hit 34 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 55, 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.