Burned area
satellite only17,926ha
Union of 4 GWIS (Copernicus) perimeters: overlapping areas count once.
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus)
- Date
- 2 Dec 2021 – 28 Dec 2021
+− cross-check
No official record is matched to this page to compare it with.
BJ · Benin · –
Tanguiéta fire, 2 December 2021 Tanguiéta
Out · last detection 28 Dec 2021, 13:08 UTC
The fire started on 2 December 2021 in Tanguiéta, Benin, and satellites saw it burning for 27 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 17,926 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 13th largest in Atakora since 2016 (of 420 with a page). Number 3 in Benin in 2021, of 128.
Use this data
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Fire page data · version 2026-10-24matches the official recordwith caveatssatellite onlymodel
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Tick the figures you want: they make up the lede and the CSV.
Duration by satellite
satellite only27days
2 Dec 2021 to 28 Dec 2021: first and last day with fire on the page.
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
- Date
- last detection: 28 Dec 2021, 13:08 UTC
+− cross-check
Satellites pass a few times a day and cloud or smoke can hide the fire: a lack of detections is not an official extinction. Each country’s emergency service declares a fire contained or out.
Start
satellite only2 Dec 2021
First day with fire seen by the satellites or the perimeter.
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
- Date
- 2 Dec 2021
+− cross-check
No official record is matched to this page, so the alert time and the cause are not known here.
Hotspots
satellite only604
VIIRS detections at 375 m. Most intense hotspot: 166 MW.
- Source
- NASA FIRMS · VIIRS (Suomi NPP)
- Date
- 2 Dec 2021 – 28 Dec 2021
+− cross-check
There is no official record to compare with. Each hotspot is a pixel detected in one satellite pass, not a separate fire.
The worst day
satellite only751MW
Total radiative power on 5 December 2021; hotspots that day: 33.
- Source
- NASA FIRMS · VIIRS (FRP)
- Date
- 5 Dec 2021
+− cross-check
Fire radiative power (FRP) measures the energy the fire gives off when the satellite passes. Added up by day, it compares intensity, not area.
Danger at the start
model50.4FWI · extreme
Fire Weather Index (Canadian system) computed by WorldFires for the day the fire started. Consecutive days without rain before: 40.
- Source
- WorldFires calculation (Canadian FWI system)
- Date
- 2 Dec 2021, local noon
- Model
- ERA5 0,25° (ECMWF · Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com
+− cross-check
This is an index computed from weather model data, not a measurement of the fire nor an official warning. Danger warnings are issued by each country’s authority. Emergency number and official warnings
Weather during the fire
model39.0°C · 13% RH
High of 39.0 °C and minimum humidity of 13% on 13 December 2021; gusts of 43 km/h on 18 December 2021.
- Source
- weather model at the fire’s grid cell
- Date
- 2 Dec 2021 – 28 Dec 2021
- Model
- ERA5 0,25° (ECMWF · Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com
+− cross-check
These are model values for a cell of about 25 km, not from a weather station: they may differ from what was measured on the ground.
This page’s change log has been kept since 24 October 2026: every night what it publishes is compared and the difference is logged. Anything earlier is reconstructed from each source’s date and marked as reconstructed.
Show
-
· reconstructed GHSLPopulation and built-up area computed
-
· reconstructed weatherWeather and FWI computed from the ERA5 reanalysis
What was saved on 24 October 2026
Every night a snapshot of what the page shows is saved. If anything changes, it appears in the list as a log entry.
- Area
- 18,091 ha
- Dates
- 2 Dec 2021 – 28 Dec 2021
- Name
- Tanguiéta
- Official record
- —
Versioned permanent link
https://worldfires.org/en/fire/tanguieta-2021-12-2?v=2026-10-24A version keeps the area, dates, name and official record; the area as it was logged (changes under 2% are not logged). The map, hotspots and weather always show today’s data.
Citation
A lede of about 60 words figures only, no adjectives
CSV for this fire tanguieta-2021-12-2.csv · daily, no individual hotspots
| fecha | focos_viirs | frp_mw | tmax_c | tmin_c | hr_min_pct | viento_max_kmh | racha_max_kmh | precip_mm | fwi | clase_fwi | dentro_del_incendio |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2021-12-03 | 3 | 17 | 1 | ||||||||
| 2021-12-04 | 3 | 14 | 37.8 | 23.4 | 8 | 13.2 | 33.1 | 0 | 50.4 | extremo | 1 |
| 2021-12-05 | 33 | 751 | 37.8 | 21.9 | 12 | 11.6 | 28.1 | 0 | 49.1 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2021-12-06 | 18 | 707 | 38.5 | 21.2 | 11 | 12.1 | 29.2 | 0 | 50.1 | extremo | 1 |
| 2021-12-07 | 1 | 8 | 38 | 23 | 10 | 10.8 | 27.4 | 0 | 49.1 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2021-12-08 | 5 | 32 | 37.3 | 22.2 | 11 | 17.1 | 35.6 | 0 | 57.3 | extremo | 1 |
| 2021-12-09 | 21 | 91 | 36.4 | 22.3 | 9 | 16.9 | 37.1 | 0 | 57.5 | extremo | 1 |
| 2021-12-10 | 14 | 211 | 36.2 | 20.2 | 10 | 11.6 | 27.7 | 0 | 51.4 | extremo | 1 |
| 2021-12-11 | 36 | 275 | 37.6 | 22 | 13 | 13.3 | 31.3 | 0 | 53.6 | extremo | 1 |
| 2021-12-12 | 35 | 185 | 37.6 | 21.9 | 11 | 12.5 | 30.2 | 0 | 53.1 | extremo | 1 |
| 2021-12-13 | 16 | 190 | 39 | 21 | 13 | 15.7 | 33.8 | 0 | 57.5 | extremo | 1 |
| 2021-12-14 | 5 | 4 | 37.6 | 21.4 | 14 | 11.6 | 29.2 | 0 | 51.5 | extremo | 1 |
| 2021-12-15 | 3 | 1 | 35.8 | 21.4 | 12 | 13.6 | 28.8 | 0 | 54.2 | extremo | 1 |
| 2021-12-16 | 16 | 94 | 35.5 | 20.5 | 11 | 21.1 | 40.7 | 0 | 64.6 | extremo | 1 |
| 2021-12-17 | 69 | 441 | 34.6 | 21.1 | 13 | 20.9 | 40.7 | 0 | 62.5 | extremo | 1 |
| 2021-12-18 | 56 | 257 | 33.7 | 19.6 | 14 | 21.5 | 42.8 | 0 | 61.7 | extremo | 1 |
| 2021-12-19 | 87 | 460 | 33.2 | 20 | 15 | 19.8 | 40.7 | 0 | 58 | extremo | 1 |
| 2021-12-20 | 26 | 178 | 32.7 | 20.3 | 16 | 20.2 | 41 | 0 | 57.2 | extremo | 1 |
| 2021-12-21 | 18 | 75 | 33.8 | 19.7 | 15 | 18.1 | 37.8 | 0 | 54.9 | extremo | 1 |
| 2021-12-22 | 26 | 223 | 34.4 | 20.8 | 14 | 16.5 | 34.9 | 0 | 53.3 | extremo | 1 |
| 2021-12-23 | 55 | 531 | 36.2 | 20.8 | 14 | 17.4 | 37.4 | 0 | 54.7 | extremo | 1 |
| 2021-12-24 | 45 | 120 | 35.7 | 21.4 | 13 | 16.3 | 35.6 | 0 | 53.7 | extremo | 1 |
| 2021-12-25 | 4 | 98 | 36.6 | 22 | 10 | 14 | 31.3 | 0 | 52.1 | extremo | 1 |
| 2021-12-26 | 6 | 15 | 36.9 | 21.7 | 11 | 13.5 | 28.1 | 0 | 51.8 | extremo | 1 |
| 2021-12-27 | 2 | 9 | 35.3 | 22 | 11 | 19 | 39.2 | 0 | 59 | extremo | 1 |
| 2021-12-28 | 1 | 4 | 34.3 | 20.5 | 13 | 19 | 39.6 | 0 | 59.4 | extremo | 1 |
| 2021-12-29 | 0 | 0 | 34.6 | 21.3 | 8 | 17 | 36.7 | 0 | 57.1 | extremo | 0 |
| 2021-12-30 | 0 | 0 | 35.6 | 21.2 | 8 | 14.5 | 33.5 | 0 | 54.4 | extremo | 0 |
| 2021-12-31 | 0 | 0 | 36.1 | 20.4 | 6 | 14.4 | 33.1 | 0 | 56.7 | extremo | 0 |
| 2022-01-01 | 0 | 0 | 35.7 | 21.7 | 7 | 14.4 | 33.5 | 0 | 57 | extremo | 0 |
| 2022-01-02 | 0 | 0 | 34.7 | 21.9 | 9 | 18.6 | 38.5 | 0 | 63 | extremo | 0 |
| 2022-01-03 | 0 | 0 | 31.4 | 23.1 | 10 | 18.7 | 38.2 | 0 | 61.6 | extremo | 0 |
| 2022-01-04 | 0 | 0 | 32.9 | 23.7 | 14 | 13.3 | 29.2 | 0 | 52.3 | extremo | 0 |
| 2022-01-05 | 0 | 0 | 33.1 | 21.3 | 17 | 13.1 | 30.6 | 0 | 49.6 | muy_alto | 0 |
It is generated in your browser from this page’s data: one file per fire, aggregated by day and without individual hotspots.
Live widget for your story
It updates itself while the fire is still active and links to this page. Free, with the attribution shown at the bottom.
Sources for this page: GWIS (Copernicus), NASA FIRMS (VIIRS), ERA5 (ECMWF/Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0), GHSL (JRC). Open-Meteo.com · How we build fire pages: methodology
- Burnt area
- 17,926ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 27days
- 2 Dec 2021 – 28 Dec 2021
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- communes
- Started on
- 2 Dec
- 2021
- Heat detections
- 604
- in a single hotspot: 166 MW
- Danger at start
- 50
- Extreme · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 192MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
HOTSPOTS BY DAY
2 Dec28 Dec
28 Dec 2021
How it evolved, day by day
5 Dec
15 Dec
21 Dec
27 Dec
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
43km/h · peak gust
8%lowest humidity
It had gone 40 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
84% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 5,263 ha in 2016, 2,423 ha in 2017, 4,538 ha in 2018, 4,886 ha in 2019, 10,343 ha in 2020. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 15,004 ha that had burned before.
- 9,104 ha Tanguiéta fire, December 2020 34,314 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 4,538 ha Tanguiéta fire, December 2018 10,282 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 3,314 ha Tanguiéta fire, December 2019 3,621 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,759 ha Tanguiéta fire, November 2016 1,999 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,690 ha Tanguiéta fire, December 2016 2,889 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,636 ha Tanguiéta fire, November 2017 3,020 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,469 ha Tanguiéta fire, December 2016 1,627 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,239 ha Tanguiéta fire, November 2020 3,523 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
-
Tanguiéta where it started18,210 ha reached on 3 Dec3.2 %
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 2020Built-up area0.10 ha
Residents< 20
Inside the perimeter there were about 0.10 hectares of 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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4 Dec | 37.8 °C | 8 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 50 |
| 5 Dec | 37.8 °C | 12 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 6 Dec | 38.5 °C | 11 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 50 |
| 7 Dec | 38.0 °C | 10 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 8 Dec | 37.3 °C | 11 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 57 |
| 9 Dec | 36.4 °C | 9 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 58 |
| 10 Dec | 36.2 °C | 10 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 11 Dec | 37.6 °C | 13 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 12 Dec | 37.6 °C | 11 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 13 Dec | 39.0 °C | 13 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 58 |
| 14 Dec | 37.6 °C | 14 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 15 Dec | 35.8 °C | 12 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 16 Dec | 35.5 °C | 11 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 65 |
| 17 Dec | 34.6 °C | 13 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 62 |
| 18 Dec | 33.7 °C | 14 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 62 |
| 19 Dec | 33.2 °C | 15 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 58 |
| 20 Dec | 32.7 °C | 16 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 57 |
| 21 Dec | 33.8 °C | 15 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 55 |
| 22 Dec | 34.4 °C | 14 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 23 Dec | 36.2 °C | 14 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 55 |
| 24 Dec | 35.7 °C | 13 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 25 Dec | 36.6 °C | 10 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 26 Dec | 36.9 °C | 11 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 27 Dec | 35.3 °C | 11 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 59 |
| 28 Dec | 34.3 °C | 13 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 59 |
| 29 Dec after | 34.6 °C | 8 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 57 |
| 30 Dec after | 35.6 °C | 8 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 31 Dec after | 36.1 °C | 6 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 57 |
| 1 Jan after | 35.7 °C | 7 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 57 |
| 2 Jan after | 34.7 °C | 9 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 63 |
| 3 Jan after | 31.4 °C | 10 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 62 |
| 4 Jan after | 32.9 °C | 14 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 5 Jan after | 33.1 °C | 17 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 50 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
↔
Before · 25 Nov 2021
After · 4 Jan 2022
Sentinel-2 did not pass over on that day. Try another date, or use false colour, which is daily.
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 · 604Every 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 time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Tanguiéta fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 2 December 2021 to 28 December 2021 (27 days). The perimeter dates it from 4 December 2021 to 26 December 2021.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 17,926 hectares (179.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Tanguiéta (18,210 ha, 3.2 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 39.0 °C, humidity dropped to 8 % and gusts hit 43 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 65, class Extreme.
- Where does this data come from?
- From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Benin (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
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.
RSS Changes to this page With cross-checks and a citable version
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; 4 polygons grouped in this page.
- Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 4 December 2021 to 26 December 2021. 604 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 ADM2 (Public Domain). 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.