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Tain fire, 6 February 2016 Tain

Out · last detection 14 Feb 2016, 13:08 UTC

The fire started on 6 February 2016 in Tain, Ghana, and satellites saw it burning for 9 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,836 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 11th largest in Bono since 2016 (of 51 with a page). Number 29 in Ghana in 2016, of 122.

Burnt area
3,836ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
9days
6 Feb 2016 – 14 Feb 2016
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
6 Feb
2016
Heat detections
115
in a single hotspot: 87 MW
Danger at start
50
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
1.5GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

14 Feb 2016
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 6 Feb14 Feb

How it evolved, day by day

6791011121314

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

The weather it burned in

38°high
32km/h · peak gust
6%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months 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. Tain where it started
    3,860 ha reached on 6 Feb
    2.1 %

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)
6 Feb 37.7 °C 10 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
7 Feb 36.4 °C 12 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
8 Feb 36.3 °C 12 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
9 Feb 36.3 °C 14 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
10 Feb 36.5 °C 7 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
11 Feb 37.1 °C 6 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
12 Feb 36.9 °C 9 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
13 Feb 36.1 °C 15 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
14 Feb 36.2 °C 15 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
15 Feb after 36.2 °C 27 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
16 Feb after 37.3 °C 26 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
17 Feb after 38.9 °C 23 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
18 Feb after 37.4 °C 27 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
19 Feb after 37.9 °C 27 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
20 Feb after 39.4 °C 19 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
21 Feb after 37.6 °C 32 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
22 Feb after 39.2 °C 24 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
23 Feb after 37.9 °C 30 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
24 Feb after 39.2 °C 25 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 30 Jan 2016
After · 21 Feb 2016

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 · 115Every 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 Ghana ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Tain fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 6 February 2016 and 14 February 2016: 9 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 3,836 hectares (38.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Tain (3,860 ha, 2.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.7 °C, humidity dropped to 6 % and gusts hit 32 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 54, class Extreme.
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

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
What do you think is wrong?

We will only use your email to reply about this report. Privacy. This is not an emergency service: if there is a fire now, call 112.

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.