Tamale fire, January 2024 Tamale, North East Gonja
The fire started on 24 January 2024 in Tamale, Ghana, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,234 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 20th largest in Northern Region since 2016 (of 262 with a page). Number 13 in Ghana in 2024, of 115.
- Burnt area
- 5,234ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 7days
- 24 Jan 2024 – 30 Jan 2024
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- districts
- Started on
- 24 Jan
- 2024
- Heat detections
- 195
- in a single hotspot: 78 MW
- Danger at start
- 39
- Very high · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 229MW
- 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 58 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
95% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,201 ha in 2016, 2,987 ha in 2017, 1,228 ha in 2019, 2,057 ha in 2020, 1,932 ha in 2021, 2,070 ha in 2022, 744 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 4,979 ha that had burned before.
- 1,932 ha Tamale fire, January 2021 2,390 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,679 ha North East Gonja fire, February 2020 2,360 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 766 ha Tamale fire, January 2022 2,401 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
Tamale where it started4,222 ha reached on 24 Jan6.5 %
-
1,046 ha reached on 24 Jan0.2 %
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.
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 24 Jan | 36.9 °C | 27 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 25 Jan | 34.9 °C | 18 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 26 Jan | 34.0 °C | 20 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 27 Jan | 33.8 °C | 23 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 28 Jan | 33.7 °C | 21 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 29 Jan | 36.2 °C | 16 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 30 Jan | 35.6 °C | 21 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 31 Jan after | 36.5 °C | 19 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 1 Feb after | 35.9 °C | 20 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 2 Feb after | 35.0 °C | 18 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 50 |
| 3 Feb after | 34.5 °C | 18 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 50 |
| 4 Feb after | 34.6 °C | 16 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 5 Feb after | 34.2 °C | 15 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 6 Feb after | 34.8 °C | 12 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 7 Feb after | 35.4 °C | 17 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 8 Feb after | 35.8 °C | 14 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 9 Feb after | 37.5 °C | 15 % | 25 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.
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 1 February 2024 the air beside the fire reached 203 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 145: 9.7 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 · 195Every 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 Tamale fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 24 January 2024 and 30 January 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 5,234 hectares (52.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Tamale (4,222 ha, 6.5 %); North East Gonja (1,046 ha, 0.2 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 36.9 °C, humidity dropped to 16 % and gusts hit 36 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 47, 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
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 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.