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Tane fire, 12 March 2022 Tane, Kunike Barina

Out · last detection 27 Mar 2022, 13:39 UTC

The fire started on 12 March 2022 in Tane, Sierra Leone, and satellites saw it burning for 15 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,210 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 23th largest in Northern since 2016 (of 1112 with a page). Number 6 in Sierra Leone in 2022, of 167.

Burnt area
5,210ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
15days
12 Mar 2022 – 26 Mar 2022
Municipalities hit
2
chiefdoms
Started on
12 Mar
2022
Heat detections
175
in a single hotspot: 156 MW
Danger at start
45
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
3.9GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

27 Mar 2022
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 12 Mar26 Mar

How it evolved, day by day

1416171819202123252627

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

The weather it burned in

39°high
38km/h · peak gust
22%lowest humidity

It had gone 21 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.6 mm on 31 Mar.

This area had burned before

70% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,190 ha in 2016, 2,000 ha in 2017. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 3,649 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Tane where it started
    5,208 ha reached on 6 Mar
    12 %
  2. Kunike Barina
    35 ha
    0.1 %

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)
12 Mar 36.7 °C 29 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
13 Mar 36.0 °C 32 % 37 km/h 0.3 mm Very high 42
14 Mar 35.3 °C 28 % 34 km/h 0.2 mm Very high 41
15 Mar 37.5 °C 25 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
16 Mar 35.6 °C 37 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
17 Mar 38.4 °C 22 % 28 km/h 0.3 mm Very high 42
18 Mar 38.8 °C 23 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
19 Mar 36.9 °C 23 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
20 Mar 36.2 °C 29 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
21 Mar 38.6 °C 23 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
22 Mar 39.1 °C 23 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
23 Mar 36.4 °C 44 % 31 km/h 0.5 mm High 33
24 Mar 37.2 °C 37 % 32 km/h 3.1 mm Moderate 18
25 Mar 37.4 °C 36 % 25 km/h 6.4 mm Low 8
26 Mar 37.7 °C 35 % 29 km/h 3.3 mm Low 11
27 Mar after 35.9 °C 40 % 27 km/h 0.9 mm Moderate 18
28 Mar after 36.2 °C 35 % 19 km/h 0.4 mm High 22
29 Mar after 37.2 °C 33 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
30 Mar after 35.3 °C 49 % 29 km/h 0.1 mm High 23
31 Mar after 35.8 °C 49 % 27 km/h 2.6 mm Low 8

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 5 Mar 2022
After · 2 Apr 2022

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 · 175Every 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 Sierra Leone ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Tane fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 12 March 2022 and 26 March 2022: 15 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 5,210 hectares (52.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Tane (5,208 ha, 12 %); Kunike Barina (35 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 39.1 °C, humidity dropped to 22 % and gusts hit 38 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 46, class Very high.
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.

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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 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.