Sene West fire, December 2018 Sene West, Sekyere Afram Plains North, Sene East
The fire started on 29 December 2018 in Sene West, Ghana, and satellites saw it burning for 34 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 60,024 hectares from heat detections, spread across 3 municipalities.
It is the 7th largest in Bono East since 2016 (of 193 with a page). The largest in Ghana in 2018, of 70.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 60,024ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 34days
- 29 Dec 2018 – 31 Jan 2019
- Municipalities hit
- 3
- districts
- Started on
- 29 Dec
- 2018
- Heat detections
- 2,351
- in a single hotspot: 156 MW
- Danger at start
- 37
- High · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 622MW
- 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 39 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 7.4 mm on 2 Feb.
This area had burned before
79% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 22,164 ha in 2016, 28,536 ha in 2017, 31,377 ha in 2018. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 47,684 ha that had burned before.
- 24,982 ha Sene East fire, December 2017 89,521 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 13,144 ha Sene West fire, January 2017 20,933 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 8,390 ha Sene West fire, January 2016 10,413 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 5,579 ha Sekyere Afram Plains North fire, January 2016 11,570 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 4,148 ha Sekyere Afram Plains North fire, January 2017 6,442 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,836 ha Sekyere Afram Plains North fire, January 2017 6,446 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,712 ha Sene West fire, January 2016 5,478 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,955 ha Sene West fire, January 2018 2,928 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 West where it started34,712 ha reached on 31 Dec11 %
-
19,664 ha reached on 29 Dec5.5 %
-
6,014 ha reached on 14 Jan1.4 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 29 Dec | 35.7 °C | 30 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 30 Dec | 35.8 °C | 33 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 31 Dec | 35.8 °C | 32 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 1 Jan | 36.3 °C | 20 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 2 Jan | 36.5 °C | 20 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 3 Jan | 36.3 °C | 25 % | 17 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 4 Jan | 35.3 °C | 22 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 5 Jan | 35.8 °C | 13 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 6 Jan | 36.3 °C | 14 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 7 Jan | 34.9 °C | 15 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 8 Jan | 36.5 °C | 18 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 9 Jan | 36.3 °C | 22 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 10 Jan | 35.4 °C | 42 % | 27 km/h | 0.2 mm | High 32 |
| 11 Jan | 36.9 °C | 34 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 12 Jan | 37.0 °C | 27 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 13 Jan | 37.5 °C | 31 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 14 Jan | 38.2 °C | 26 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 15 Jan | 37.6 °C | 28 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 16 Jan | 38.1 °C | 30 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 17 Jan | 38.6 °C | 28 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 18 Jan | 36.0 °C | 44 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 19 Jan | 36.6 °C | 37 % | 26 km/h | 2.0 mm | Moderate 19 |
| 20 Jan | 34.8 °C | 41 % | 24 km/h | 2.5 mm | Low 11 |
| 21 Jan | 36.9 °C | 18 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 22 Jan | 37.5 °C | 18 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 23 Jan | 37.3 °C | 26 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 24 Jan | 38.6 °C | 24 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 25 Jan | 37.3 °C | 32 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 26 Jan | 38.0 °C | 27 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 27 Jan | 37.5 °C | 20 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 28 Jan | 37.4 °C | 29 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 29 Jan | 38.0 °C | 27 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 30 Jan | 37.7 °C | 31 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 31 Jan | 37.2 °C | 35 % | 36 km/h | 0.9 mm | High 28 |
| 1 Feb after | 38.4 °C | 32 % | 28 km/h | 0.5 mm | High 33 |
| 2 Feb after | 35.2 °C | 50 % | 35 km/h | 7.4 mm | Low 7 |
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 · 2,351Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 40,149 haSekyere Afram Plains NorthDecember 2020 · 29 days · 11 km away
- 127,027 haSene EastJanuary 2020 · 43 days · 22 km away
- 118,389 haSekyere Afram Plains North14 December 2022 · 46 days · 26 km away
- 99,561 haSene East7 January 2024 · 45 days · 26 km away
- 118,987 haSene West28 December 2025 · 44 days · 28 km away
- 113,353 haSekyere Afram Plains North12 January 2022 · 33 days · 29 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Sene West fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 29 December 2018 to 31 January 2019 (34 days). The perimeter dates it from 5 January 2019 to 30 January 2019.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 60,024 hectares (600.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 3 municipalities: Sene West (34,712 ha, 11 %); Sekyere Afram Plains North (19,664 ha, 5.5 %); Sene East (6,014 ha, 1.4 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 38.6 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 36 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 45, class Very 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 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
No changes since 24 October 2026.
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; 8 polygons grouped in this page.
- Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 5 January 2019 to 30 January 2019. 2,351 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 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.