Sangardo fire, 31 January 2022 Sangardo, Ferméssadou
The fire started on 31 January 2022 in Sangardo, Guinea, and satellites saw it burning for 13 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,788 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 93th largest in Faranah since 2016 (of 208 with a page). Number 43 in Guinea in 2022, of 107.
Compare with…
Suggestions: Albadariah · 2016
- Burnt area
- 2,788ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 13days
- 31 Jan 2022 – 12 Feb 2022
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- sub-prefectures
- Started on
- 31 Jan
- 2022
- Heat detections
- 87
- in a single hotspot: 33 MW
- Danger at start
- 48
- Very high · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 95MW
- 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 more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
7% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 177 ha in 2019, 7 ha in 2020.
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
-
Sangardo where it started1,899 ha reached on 3 Feb1.7 %
-
906 ha reached on 31 Jan2.2 %
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.
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3 Feb | 34.2 °C | 12 % | 21 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 4 Feb | 35.6 °C | 9 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 5 Feb | 35.1 °C | 16 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 6 Feb | 35.3 °C | 15 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 7 Feb | 34.6 °C | 14 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 8 Feb | 34.0 °C | 13 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 50 |
| 9 Feb | 34.9 °C | 17 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 10 Feb | 35.9 °C | 12 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 11 Feb | 35.9 °C | 7 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 12 Feb | 34.7 °C | 8 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 13 Feb after | 35.5 °C | 11 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 14 Feb after | 35.3 °C | 9 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 15 Feb after | 35.1 °C | 10 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 16 Feb after | 36.3 °C | 14 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
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 · 87Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Sangardo fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 31 January 2022 to 12 February 2022 (13 days). The perimeter dates it from 3 February 2022 to 6 February 2022.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 2,788 hectares (27.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Sangardo (1,899 ha, 1.7 %); Ferméssadou (906 ha, 2.2 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 35.6 °C, humidity dropped to 9 % and gusts hit 26 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 48, class Very high.
- Where does this data come from?
- From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Guinea (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.
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: 6 February 2022 → 12 February 2022.
- Start date: 3 February 2022 → 31 January 2022.
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 February 2022 to 6 February 2022. 87 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.
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 ADM3 (Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Intergovernmental Organisations (CC BY 3.0 IGO)). 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.