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BF · Burkina Faso · →

Sindo fire, December 2024 Sindo

Out · last detection 22 Dec 2024, 14:11 UTC

The fire started on 16 December 2024 in Sindo, Burkina Faso, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,009 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 2th largest in Guiriko since 2016 (of 85 with a page). Number 21 in Burkina Faso in 2024, of 380.

Burnt area
5,009ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
7days
16 Dec 2024 – 22 Dec 2024
Municipalities hit
1
communes
Started on
16 Dec
2024
Heat detections
149
in a single hotspot: 244 MW
Danger at start
48
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
1.6GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

22 Dec 2024
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 16 Dec22 Dec

How it evolved, day by day

16171819202122

Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.

The weather it burned in

34°high
38km/h · peak gust
14%lowest humidity

It had gone 52 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

What happened to each town

  1. Sindo where it started
    5,043 ha reached on 16 Dec
    8.1 %

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.

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)
16 Dec 34.1 °C 14 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
17 Dec 33.9 °C 15 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
18 Dec 33.0 °C 16 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
19 Dec 30.4 °C 18 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
20 Dec 30.0 °C 19 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
21 Dec 30.5 °C 20 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
22 Dec 31.7 °C 20 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
23 Dec after 33.1 °C 21 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
24 Dec after 33.6 °C 20 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
25 Dec after 33.1 °C 16 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
26 Dec after 33.1 °C 15 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
27 Dec after 33.9 °C 15 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
28 Dec after 34.0 °C 13 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
29 Dec after 34.1 °C 13 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
30 Dec after 33.6 °C 14 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
31 Dec after 33.4 °C 15 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
1 Jan after 32.1 °C 19 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46

Before and after, from space

Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.

Before · 9 Dec 2024
After · 29 Dec 2024

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 · Copernicus

On 19 December 2024 the air beside the fire reached 102 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 86: 5.7 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak102 µg/m³
Days over the guideline12 days
PM10446 µg/m³
Optical depth0.56
141516171819202122232425
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 · 149Every 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 timeSatelliteFRP (MW)LatLon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Burkina Faso ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Sindo fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 16 December 2024 and 22 December 2024: 7 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 5,009 hectares (50.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Sindo (5,043 ha, 8.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 34.1 °C, humidity dropped to 14 % and gusts hit 38 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 50, class Very high.
Where does this data come from?
From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Burkina Faso (OCHA COD-AB). 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.

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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 OCHA COD-AB (Institut Geographique Burkina (IGB)) (Creative Commons Attribution for Intergovernmental Organisations (CC BY-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.