Sengbe fire, 14 March 2022 Sengbe, Mongo
The fire started on 14 March 2022 in Sengbe, Sierra Leone, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 1,708 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 316th largest in Northern since 2016 (of 1112 with a page). Number 42 in Sierra Leone in 2022, of 167.
- Burnt area
- 1,708ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 8days
- 14 Mar 2022 – 21 Mar 2022
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- chiefdoms
- Started on
- 14 Mar
- 2022
- Heat detections
- 59
- in a single hotspot: 57 MW
- Energy released
- 1.1GW
- 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
81% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,141 ha in 2016, 336 ha in 2017, 151 ha in 2018, 7 ha in 2020. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,389 ha that had burned before.
- 918 ha Mongo fire, April 2016 2,179 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 336 ha Sengbe fire, February 2017 1,426 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 167 ha Sengbe fire, January 2016 1,298 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 151 ha Sengbe fire, January 2018 1,242 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 56 ha Mongo fire, January 2016 1,489 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 7 ha Sengbe fire, March 2020 1,921 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
Sengbe where it started1,388 ha reached on 14 Mar1.2 %
-
331 ha reached on 14 Mar0.2 %
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 · 59Every 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 Sengbe fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 14 March 2022 and 21 March 2022: 8 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 1,708 hectares (17.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Sengbe (1,388 ha, 1.2 %); Mongo (331 ha, 0.2 %).
- Where does this data come from?
- From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Sierra Leone (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
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 ADM3 (Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 (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.