Sifié fire, December 2022 Gouiné, Guintéguéla, Kamalo
The fire started on 27 December 2022 in Sifié, Côte d’Ivoire, and satellites saw it burning for 23 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 10,668 hectares from heat detections, spread across 5 municipalities.
It is the largest fire in Woroba since 2016 (of 128 with a page). Number 5 in Côte d’Ivoire in 2022, of 127.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 10,668ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 23days
- 27 Dec 2022 – 18 Jan 2023
- Municipalities hit
- 5
- sub-prefectures
- Started on
- 27 Dec
- 2022
- Heat detections
- 316
- in a single hotspot: 60 MW
- Danger at start
- 25
- High · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 150MW
- 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 21 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
99% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 693 ha in 2016, 5,758 ha in 2017, 4,225 ha in 2018, 3,012 ha in 2019, 11,394 ha in 2020, 3,753 ha in 2021. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 10,512 ha that had burned before.
- 5,444 ha Guintéguéla fire, December 2019 9,951 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 4,798 ha Gouiné fire, January 2017 6,269 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 3,554 ha Gouiné fire, December 2018 7,208 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,237 ha Gouiné fire, December 2019 4,721 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,913 ha Guintéguéla fire, December 2020 2,143 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,672 ha Gouiné fire, January 2019 1,874 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,613 ha Gouiné fire, December 2021 1,867 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,603 ha Gouiné fire, January 2021 2,220 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
-
8,118 ha reached on 30 Dec5.9 %
-
1,840 ha reached on 31 Dec1.2 %
-
465 ha reached on 30 Dec1.2 %
-
Sifié where it started267 ha reached on 27 Dec0.6 %
-
46 ha reached on 29 Dec0.0 %
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 2020Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2020, 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.
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 27 Dec | 34.2 °C | 24 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 28 Dec | 34.8 °C | 22 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 29 Dec | 34.2 °C | 36 % | 19 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 22 |
| 30 Dec | 33.6 °C | 20 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 31 Dec | 35.2 °C | 15 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 1 Jan | 33.7 °C | 14 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 2 Jan | 34.0 °C | 13 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 3 Jan | 34.7 °C | 15 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 4 Jan | 34.1 °C | 14 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 5 Jan | 34.5 °C | 14 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 6 Jan | 34.6 °C | 17 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 7 Jan | 35.4 °C | 19 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 8 Jan | 35.8 °C | 20 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 9 Jan | 36.1 °C | 18 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 10 Jan | 35.8 °C | 17 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 11 Jan | 34.6 °C | 19 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 12 Jan | 34.0 °C | 19 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 13 Jan | 35.7 °C | 15 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 14 Jan | 35.3 °C | 14 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 15 Jan | 34.9 °C | 27 % | 19 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 16 Jan | 36.0 °C | 14 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 17 Jan | 35.6 °C | 16 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 18 Jan | 36.3 °C | 15 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 19 Jan after | 36.0 °C | 17 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 20 Jan after | 36.5 °C | 19 % | 17 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 21 Jan after | 37.3 °C | 25 % | 21 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 22 Jan after | 36.7 °C | 29 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 23 Jan after | 36.7 °C | 34 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 24 Jan after | 37.1 °C | 33 % | 27 km/h | 0.3 mm | High 36 |
| 25 Jan after | 36.1 °C | 36 % | 27 km/h | 0.4 mm | High 34 |
| 26 Jan after | 38.4 °C | 26 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 27 Jan after | 35.8 °C | 38 % | 32 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 35 |
| 28 Jan after | 37.8 °C | 21 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
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.
The smoke
CAMS · CopernicusOn 7 January 2023 the air beside the fire reached 153 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 104: 6.9 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
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 · 316Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 25,038 haGouinéDecember 2017 · 30 days · 6 km away
- 9,951 haGuintéguéla30 December 2019 · 16 days · 11 km away
- 24,388 haGouiné14 January 2021 · 22 days · 16 km away
- 14,988 haGouiné25 January 2020 · 23 days · 17 km away
- 21,060 haGouiné6 January 2024 · 32 days · 19 km away
- 15,503 haGouiné25 December 2018 · 29 days · 20 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Sifié fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 27 December 2022 to 18 January 2023 (23 days). The perimeter dates it from 29 December 2022 to 11 January 2023.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 10,668 hectares (106.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 5 municipalities: Gouiné (8,118 ha, 5.9 %); Guintéguéla (1,840 ha, 1.2 %); Kamalo (465 ha, 1.2 %); Sifié (267 ha, 0.6 %); Gbonné (46 ha, 0.0 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 36.3 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 35 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 40, class Very high.
- Where does this data come from?
- From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Côte d’Ivoire (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: 180 · 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; 2 polygons grouped in this page.
- Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 29 December 2022 to 11 January 2023. 316 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 2020, 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 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.