Offinso North fire, February 2022 Offinso North, Offinso
The fire started on 1 February 2022 in Offinso North, Ghana, and satellites saw it burning for 11 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,162 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 88th largest in Ashanti since 2016 (of 103 with a page). Number 96 in Ghana in 2022, of 118.
- Burnt area
- 2,162ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 11days
- 1 Feb 2022 – 11 Feb 2022
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- districts
- Started on
- 1 Feb
- 2022
- Heat detections
- 235
- in a single hotspot: 80 MW
- Energy released
- 2.2GW
- sum of detected power
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.
This area had burned before
95% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,969 ha in 2016, 892 ha in 2020. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,051 ha that had burned before.
- 1,969 ha Offinso North fire, January 2016 20,797 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 885 ha Offinso fire, February 2020 10,205 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 7 ha Offinso North fire, February 2020 4,119 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
Offinso North where it started1,949 ha reached on 1 Feb2.0 %
-
227 ha reached on 10 Feb0.4 %
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.
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.
Detections table · 235Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 20,797 haOffinso North23 January 2016 · 22 days · 5 km away
- 4,119 haOffinso NorthFebruary 2020 · 16 days · 6 km away
- 3,985 haOffinso NorthJanuary 2022 · 14 days · 7 km away
- 10,205 haOffinsoFebruary 2020 · 14 days · 11 km away
- 5,860 haOffinso NorthFebruary 2016 · 12 days · 15 km away
- 9,821 haAhafo Ano South WestJanuary 2016 · 18 days · 33 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Offinso North fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 1 February 2022 and 11 February 2022: 11 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 2,162 hectares (21.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Offinso North (1,949 ha, 2.0 %); Offinso (227 ha, 0.4 %).
- 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.
Report an error
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.