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Offinso North fire, January 2022 Offinso North, Offinso

Out · last detection 5 Feb 2022, 01:31 UTC

The fire started on 22 January 2022 in Offinso North, Ghana, and satellites saw it burning for 14 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,985 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 29th largest in Ashanti since 2016 (of 103 with a page). Number 21 in Ghana in 2022, of 118.

Burnt area
3,985ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
14days
22 Jan 2022 – 4 Feb 2022
Municipalities hit
2
districts
Started on
22 Jan
2022
Heat detections
287
in a single hotspot: 86 MW
Danger at start
46
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
1.7GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

5 Feb 2022
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 22 Jan4 Feb

How it evolved, day by day

2223242526272829303112345

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
39km/h · peak gust
7%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 14.7 mm on 13 Feb.

This area had burned before

98% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 3,731 ha in 2016, 16 ha in 2018, 3,490 ha in 2019, 3,663 ha in 2020. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 3,902 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Offinso North where it started
    3,931 ha reached on 21 Jan
    4.1 %
  2. Offinso
    80 ha
    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)
22 Jan 34.7 °C 11 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
23 Jan 33.0 °C 10 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
24 Jan 35.1 °C 9 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
25 Jan 33.7 °C 9 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
26 Jan 34.9 °C 8 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
27 Jan 34.4 °C 30 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
28 Jan 34.9 °C 25 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
29 Jan 34.8 °C 19 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
30 Jan 35.4 °C 10 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
31 Jan 34.7 °C 13 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
1 Feb 35.3 °C 7 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
2 Feb 35.2 °C 11 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
3 Feb 33.9 °C 18 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
4 Feb 35.3 °C 24 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
5 Feb after 34.4 °C 32 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
6 Feb after 35.3 °C 24 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
7 Feb after 35.3 °C 31 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
8 Feb after 35.9 °C 23 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
9 Feb after 35.8 °C 19 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
10 Feb after 36.1 °C 20 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
11 Feb after 35.9 °C 27 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
12 Feb after 33.1 °C 45 % 35 km/h 0.1 mm High 33
13 Feb after 34.9 °C 41 % 34 km/h 14.7 mm Low 7

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 15 Jan 2022
After · 11 Feb 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.

Detections table · 287Every 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 22 January 2022 and 4 February 2022: 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 3,985 hectares (39.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Offinso North (3,931 ha, 4.1 %); Offinso (80 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 35.4 °C, humidity dropped to 7 % and gusts hit 39 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.