Burned area
satellite only80,136ha
Union of 10 GWIS (Copernicus) perimeters: overlapping areas count once.
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus)
- Date
- 2 Jan 2026 – 8 Feb 2026
+− cross-check
No official record is matched to this page to compare it with.
GH · Ghana · –
Sene East fire, 2 January 2026 Sene East, Sekyere Afram Plains North, Kwahu Afram Plains South
Out · last detection 9 Feb 2026, 13:13 UTC
The fire started on 2 January 2026 in Sene East, Ghana, and satellites saw it burning for 38 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 80,136 hectares from heat detections, spread across 4 municipalities.
The largest in Ghana in 2026, of 180.
GWIS near-real-time perimeter, from the layer that changed in August 2025: this fire is not compared with fires from earlier years, because since then the GWIS layer gives more and larger perimeters.
Use this data
Compare with…
Use this data
Fire page data · version 2026-11-05matches the official recordwith caveatssatellite onlymodel
When copying, the sentence is
Tick the figures you want: they make up the lede and the CSV.
Duration by satellite
satellite only38days
2 Jan 2026 to 8 Feb 2026: first and last day with fire on the page.
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
- Date
- last detection: 9 Feb 2026, 13:13 UTC
+− cross-check
Satellites pass a few times a day and cloud or smoke can hide the fire: a lack of detections is not an official extinction. Each country’s emergency service declares a fire contained or out.
Start
satellite only2 Jan 2026
First day with fire seen by the satellites or the perimeter.
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
- Date
- 2 Jan 2026
+− cross-check
No official record is matched to this page, so the alert time and the cause are not known here.
The worst day
satellite only4,073MW
Total radiative power on 26 January 2026; hotspots that day: 329.
- Source
- NASA FIRMS · VIIRS (FRP)
- Date
- 26 Jan 2026
+− cross-check
Fire radiative power (FRP) measures the energy the fire gives off when the satellite passes. Added up by day, it compares intensity, not area.
Danger at the start
model27.4FWI · high
Fire Weather Index (Canadian system) computed by WorldFires for the day the fire started. Consecutive days without rain before: 49.
- Source
- WorldFires calculation (Canadian FWI system)
- Date
- 2 Jan 2026, local noon
- Model
- ERA5 0,25° (ECMWF · Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com
+− cross-check
This is an index computed from weather model data, not a measurement of the fire nor an official warning. Danger warnings are issued by each country’s authority. Emergency number and official warnings
Weather during the fire
model35.9°C · 35% RH
High of 35.9 °C and minimum humidity of 35% on 4 February 2026; gusts of 37 km/h on 2 January 2026.
- Source
- weather model at the fire’s grid cell
- Date
- 2 Jan 2026 – 8 Feb 2026
- Model
- ERA5 0,25° (ECMWF · Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com
+− cross-check
These are model values for a cell of about 25 km, not from a weather station: they may differ from what was measured on the ground.
Living inside
model≈ 350people
Estimated residents inside the perimeter and 2.5 ha of built-up area (100 m grid, epoch 2025).
- Source
- GHSL R2023A · JRC
- Date
- calculated on 24 October 2026
+− cross-check
This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned.
This page’s change log has been kept since 24 October 2026: every night what it publishes is compared and the difference is logged. Anything earlier is reconstructed from each source’s date and marked as reconstructed.
Show
-
logArea: 82,216 → 80,136 ha.
-
· reconstructed weatherWeather and FWI computed from the ERA5 reanalysis
-
· reconstructed GHSLPopulation and built-up area computed
What was saved on 5 November 2026
Every night a snapshot of what the page shows is saved. If anything changes, it appears in the list as a log entry.
- Area
- 80,136 ha
- Dates
- 2 Jan 2026 – 8 Feb 2026
- Name
- Sene East
- Official record
- —
Versioned permanent link
https://worldfires.org/en/fire/sene-east-2026-01?v=2026-11-05A version keeps the area, dates, name and official record; the area as it was logged (changes under 2% are not logged). The map, hotspots and weather always show today’s data.
Citation
A lede of about 60 words figures only, no adjectives
CSV for this fire sene-east-2026-01.csv · daily, no individual hotspots
| fecha | focos_viirs | frp_mw | tmax_c | tmin_c | hr_min_pct | viento_max_kmh | racha_max_kmh | precip_mm | fwi | clase_fwi | dentro_del_incendio |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026-01-02 | 7 | 19 | 34.4 | 25.4 | 48 | 20.2 | 37.1 | 0 | 27.4 | alto | 1 |
| 2026-01-03 | 21 | 255 | 33.8 | 24.6 | 53 | 16.6 | 29.5 | 0 | 25.2 | alto | 1 |
| 2026-01-04 | 37 | 130 | 33.2 | 25.9 | 55 | 13.2 | 26.6 | 0 | 23.3 | alto | 1 |
| 2026-01-05 | 57 | 706 | 33.8 | 25.8 | 53 | 17.2 | 28.8 | 0 | 26.1 | alto | 1 |
| 2026-01-06 | 37 | 326 | 34.1 | 26.2 | 48 | 18.7 | 30.6 | 0 | 27.4 | alto | 1 |
| 2026-01-07 | 62 | 453 | 34.5 | 26.3 | 48 | 14.6 | 27.7 | 0.4 | 24.9 | alto | 1 |
| 2026-01-08 | 47 | 381 | 33.4 | 25.4 | 58 | 11.7 | 23 | 0.8 | 16.7 | moderado | 1 |
| 2026-01-09 | 2 | 8 | 33.3 | 24.8 | 48 | 13.4 | 26.3 | 0 | 22.4 | alto | 1 |
| 2026-01-10 | 66 | 1,247 | 33.9 | 26.2 | 49 | 13.7 | 27.7 | 0 | 23.4 | alto | 1 |
| 2026-01-11 | 140 | 1,369 | 33.5 | 25.9 | 37 | 9.3 | 20.2 | 0 | 25.1 | alto | 1 |
| 2026-01-12 | 64 | 846 | 33.1 | 25.8 | 45 | 10.1 | 20.9 | 0 | 25.9 | alto | 1 |
| 2026-01-13 | 128 | 1,278 | 34.6 | 25.8 | 34 | 8.7 | 22.3 | 0 | 27.3 | alto | 1 |
| 2026-01-14 | 32 | 158 | 33.4 | 26.3 | 43 | 10.5 | 20.2 | 0 | 28.4 | alto | 1 |
| 2026-01-15 | 16 | 82 | 33.6 | 26.3 | 43 | 13.2 | 25.2 | 0 | 30.5 | alto | 1 |
| 2026-01-16 | 81 | 1,106 | 34.2 | 26.7 | 38 | 9 | 21.2 | 0 | 27.7 | alto | 1 |
| 2026-01-17 | 32 | 244 | 33.3 | 26.5 | 45 | 13 | 25.6 | 0 | 29.6 | alto | 1 |
| 2026-01-18 | 96 | 836 | 33.6 | 26.4 | 47 | 12.9 | 25.2 | 0.2 | 28.7 | alto | 1 |
| 2026-01-19 | 61 | 649 | 35 | 26.6 | 46 | 16.4 | 29.5 | 0 | 31.5 | alto | 1 |
| 2026-01-20 | 86 | 440 | 34.3 | 26.5 | 44 | 13.7 | 26.3 | 0 | 29.7 | alto | 1 |
| 2026-01-21 | 102 | 1,429 | 34.2 | 25.7 | 26 | 11.8 | 26.6 | 0 | 34.3 | alto | 1 |
| 2026-01-22 | 148 | 1,477 | 33.6 | 25.3 | 38 | 9.4 | 22 | 0 | 31 | alto | 1 |
| 2026-01-23 | 174 | 1,664 | 34.4 | 25.3 | 29 | 8.3 | 19.1 | 0 | 30.6 | alto | 1 |
| 2026-01-24 | 121 | 1,127 | 34.5 | 24.9 | 26 | 9.7 | 19.1 | 0 | 33.5 | alto | 1 |
| 2026-01-25 | 227 | 2,418 | 35 | 24.7 | 22 | 9.4 | 21.2 | 0 | 36.1 | alto | 1 |
| 2026-01-26 | 329 | 4,073 | 34.4 | 23.7 | 28 | 9 | 19.4 | 0 | 36 | alto | 1 |
| 2026-01-27 | 124 | 1,536 | 34.2 | 23.8 | 30 | 7.5 | 19.8 | 0 | 34.5 | alto | 1 |
| 2026-01-28 | 156 | 2,138 | 34.7 | 25.7 | 42 | 10.4 | 21.6 | 0 | 31.2 | alto | 1 |
| 2026-01-29 | 162 | 1,159 | 35 | 26.1 | 38 | 10.7 | 22.7 | 0 | 31.6 | alto | 1 |
| 2026-01-30 | 68 | 655 | 35.5 | 26.3 | 34 | 11.4 | 22.3 | 0 | 32.4 | alto | 1 |
| 2026-01-31 | 82 | 413 | 35.4 | 25.9 | 44 | 16.2 | 30.6 | 0 | 34.7 | alto | 1 |
| 2026-02-01 | 50 | 224 | 34.8 | 26.6 | 48 | 15.5 | 27.4 | 0 | 31.7 | alto | 1 |
| 2026-02-02 | 14 | 78 | 35.3 | 26.4 | 47 | 14.1 | 30.6 | 0 | 30.8 | alto | 1 |
| 2026-02-03 | 0 | 0 | 35.3 | 26.3 | 39 | 13.2 | 27 | 0.2 | 30.3 | alto | 1 |
| 2026-02-04 | 2 | 7 | 35.9 | 24.7 | 35 | 14.5 | 31.3 | 0 | 33.3 | alto | 1 |
| 2026-02-05 | 28 | 268 | 35.9 | 26.1 | 37 | 15.3 | 27.4 | 0 | 34.2 | alto | 1 |
| 2026-02-06 | 1 | 0 | 35.2 | 26.8 | 47 | 16.6 | 31.7 | 0 | 33.4 | alto | 1 |
| 2026-02-07 | 7 | 82 | 34.1 | 26.6 | 52 | 15.8 | 29.9 | 0.2 | 29.7 | alto | 1 |
| 2026-02-08 | 10 | 120 | 35.6 | 25.8 | 46 | 14.6 | 24.1 | 0 | 29 | alto | 1 |
| 2026-02-09 | 12 | 141 | 35.5 | 27.2 | 49 | 18.3 | 33.1 | 0 | 32 | alto | 0 |
| 2026-02-10 | 0 | 0 | 33 | 25.9 | 54 | 21.3 | 38.5 | 2.6 | 14.3 | moderado | 0 |
It is generated in your browser from this page’s data: one file per fire, aggregated by day and without individual hotspots.
Live widget for your story
It updates itself while the fire is still active and links to this page. Free, with the attribution shown at the bottom.
Sources for this page: GWIS (Copernicus), NASA FIRMS (VIIRS), ERA5 (ECMWF/Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0), GHSL (JRC). Open-Meteo.com · How we build fire pages: methodology
- Burnt area
- 80,136ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 38days
- 2 Jan 2026 – 8 Feb 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 4
- districts
- Started on
- 2 Jan
- 2026
- Heat detections
- 2,889
- in a single hotspot: 0 MW
- Danger at start
- 27
- High · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 777MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
HOTSPOTS BY DAY
2 Jan8 Feb
9 Feb 2026
How it evolved, day by day
2 Jan
10 Jan
18 Jan
26 Jan
4 Feb
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
36°high
37km/h · peak gust
22%lowest humidity
It had gone 49 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.6 mm on 10 Feb.
This area had burned before
97% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 15,365 ha in 2016, 29,534 ha in 2017, 36,280 ha in 2018, 33,417 ha in 2019, 58,227 ha in 2020, 17,994 ha in 2021, 47,748 ha in 2022, 39,547 ha in 2023, 73,632 ha in 2024, 9,675 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 77,389 ha that had burned before.
- 40,555 ha Sene East fire, January 2020 125,649 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 33,438 ha Sekyere Afram Plains North fire, January 2022 113,296 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 32,118 ha Sene East fire, January 2024 98,434 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 32,057 ha Sene East fire, December 2017 87,599 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 31,845 ha Sekyere Afram Plains North fire, December 2022 116,710 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 29,800 ha Sene East fire, December 2024 93,441 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 13,994 ha Sene East fire, January 2019 19,181 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 11,535 ha Sekyere Afram Plains North fire, December 2020 40,067 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
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
-
Sene East where it started58,005 ha13 %
-
21,140 ha6.0 %
-
2,800 ha0.9 %
-
776 ha0.2 %
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.
People and buildings inside the perimeter
GHSL 2025Built-up area2.5 ha
Residents≈ 350
Inside the perimeter there were about 2.5 hectares of built-up land and about 350 residents (GHSL 2025, satellite-based estimate).
This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned. The GHSL 2025 epoch is a projection made from 2020 and earlier data.
Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2 Jan | 34.4 °C | 48 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 3 Jan | 33.8 °C | 53 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 4 Jan | 33.2 °C | 55 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 23 |
| 5 Jan | 33.8 °C | 53 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 6 Jan | 34.1 °C | 48 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 7 Jan | 34.5 °C | 48 % | 28 km/h | 0.4 mm | High 25 |
| 8 Jan | 33.4 °C | 58 % | 23 km/h | 0.8 mm | Moderate 17 |
| 9 Jan | 33.3 °C | 48 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 22 |
| 10 Jan | 33.9 °C | 49 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 23 |
| 11 Jan | 33.5 °C | 37 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 12 Jan | 33.1 °C | 45 % | 21 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 13 Jan | 34.6 °C | 34 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 14 Jan | 33.4 °C | 43 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 15 Jan | 33.6 °C | 43 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 16 Jan | 34.2 °C | 38 % | 21 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 17 Jan | 33.3 °C | 45 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 18 Jan | 33.6 °C | 47 % | 25 km/h | 0.2 mm | High 29 |
| 19 Jan | 35.0 °C | 46 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 20 Jan | 34.3 °C | 44 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 21 Jan | 34.2 °C | 26 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 22 Jan | 33.6 °C | 38 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 23 Jan | 34.4 °C | 29 % | 19 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 24 Jan | 34.5 °C | 26 % | 19 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 25 Jan | 35.0 °C | 22 % | 21 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 26 Jan | 34.4 °C | 28 % | 19 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 27 Jan | 34.2 °C | 30 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 28 Jan | 34.7 °C | 42 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 29 Jan | 35.0 °C | 38 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 30 Jan | 35.5 °C | 34 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 31 Jan | 35.4 °C | 44 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 1 Feb | 34.8 °C | 48 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 2 Feb | 35.3 °C | 47 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 3 Feb | 35.3 °C | 39 % | 27 km/h | 0.2 mm | High 30 |
| 4 Feb | 35.9 °C | 35 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 5 Feb | 35.9 °C | 37 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 6 Feb | 35.2 °C | 47 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 7 Feb | 34.1 °C | 52 % | 30 km/h | 0.2 mm | High 30 |
| 8 Feb | 35.6 °C | 46 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 9 Feb after | 35.5 °C | 49 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 10 Feb after | 33.0 °C | 54 % | 38 km/h | 2.6 mm | Moderate 14 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
↔
Before · 26 Dec 2025
After · 15 Feb 2026
Sentinel-2 did not pass over on that day. Try another date, or use false colour, which is daily.
If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.
The smoke
CAMS · CopernicusOn 27 January 2026 the air beside the fire reached 189 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 136: 9.1 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
PM2.5 peak189 µg/m³
Days over the guideline40 days
PM10304 µg/m³
Optical depth1.25
WHO 15
31 Dec9 Jan18 Jan27 Jan5 Feb
Good
Fair
Moderate
Poor
Very poor
Extremely poor
Particles from the Copernicus CAMS model at the centre of the perimeter; these are not measurements in each town. The pale bar is the worst hour, the solid one the daily average.
Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS)
Detections table · 0Every 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 time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Sene East fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 2 January 2026 and 8 February 2026: 38 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 80,136 hectares (801.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 4 municipalities: Sene East (58,005 ha, 13 %); Sekyere Afram Plains North (21,140 ha, 6.0 %); Kwahu Afram Plains South (2,800 ha, 0.9 %); Sene West (776 ha, 0.2 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 35.9 °C, humidity dropped to 22 % and gusts hit 37 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 36, class High.
- 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 · Emergency number and official warnings
Satellite cross-check
History of this page · 1 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
- Area: 82,216 → 80,136 ha.
RSS Changes to this page With cross-checks and a citable version
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; 10 polygons grouped in this page.
- Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. No 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.
- Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2025, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.
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.