Burned area
satellite only7,401ha
Perimeter published by GWIS (Copernicus).
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus)
- Date
- 12 Dec 2022 – 15 Dec 2022
+− cross-check
No official record is matched to this page to compare it with.
BJ · Benin · –
Tanguiéta fire, 12 December 2022 Tanguiéta
Out · last detection 15 Dec 2022, 02:01 UTC
The fire started on 12 December 2022 in Tanguiéta, Benin, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 7,401 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 34th largest in Atakora since 2016 (of 420 with a page). Number 11 in Benin in 2022, of 96.
Use this data
Compare with…
Use this data
Fire page data · version 2026-10-24matches the official recordwith caveatssatellite onlymodel
When copying, the sentence is
Tick the figures you want: they make up the lede and the CSV.
Duration by satellite
satellite only4days
12 Dec 2022 to 15 Dec 2022: first and last day with fire on the page.
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
- Date
- last detection: 15 Dec 2022, 02:01 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 only12 Dec 2022
First day with fire seen by the satellites or the perimeter.
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
- Date
- 12 Dec 2022
+− cross-check
No official record is matched to this page, so the alert time and the cause are not known here.
Hotspots
satellite only182
VIIRS detections at 375 m. Most intense hotspot: 125 MW.
- Source
- NASA FIRMS · VIIRS (Suomi NPP)
- Date
- 12 Dec 2022 – 15 Dec 2022
+− 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 only4,651MW
Total radiative power on 12 December 2022; hotspots that day: 133.
- Source
- NASA FIRMS · VIIRS (FRP)
- Date
- 12 Dec 2022
+− 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
model54.1FWI · extreme
Fire Weather Index (Canadian system) computed by WorldFires for the day the fire started. Consecutive days without rain before: 59.
- Source
- WorldFires calculation (Canadian FWI system)
- Date
- 12 Dec 2022, 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
model36.4°C · 12% RH
High of 36.4 °C and minimum humidity of 12% on 13 December 2022; gusts of 34 km/h on 12 December 2022.
- Source
- weather model at the fire’s grid cell
- Date
- 12 Dec 2022 – 15 Dec 2022
- 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
- 7,401 ha
- Dates
- 12 Dec 2022 – 15 Dec 2022
- Name
- Tanguiéta
- Official record
- —
Versioned permanent link
https://worldfires.org/en/fire/tanguieta-2022-12-4?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-2022-12-4.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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2022-12-12 | 133 | 4,651 | 35.9 | 20.1 | 12 | 15.2 | 33.8 | 0 | 54.1 | extremo | 1 |
| 2022-12-13 | 40 | 297 | 36.4 | 20.1 | 12 | 15.2 | 33.5 | 0 | 54.4 | extremo | 1 |
| 2022-12-14 | 7 | 107 | 36.3 | 20.7 | 9 | 14.6 | 32.4 | 0 | 54.1 | extremo | 1 |
| 2022-12-15 | 2 | 2 | 36.1 | 17.9 | 10 | 12.9 | 30.2 | 0 | 52.3 | extremo | 1 |
| 2022-12-16 | 0 | 0 | 36.2 | 19.2 | 11 | 12.4 | 28.1 | 0 | 52.1 | extremo | 0 |
| 2022-12-17 | 0 | 0 | 34.2 | 22.3 | 14 | 15.3 | 33.5 | 0 | 54.4 | extremo | 0 |
| 2022-12-18 | 0 | 0 | 35 | 21.3 | 15 | 18 | 38.2 | 0 | 57.3 | extremo | 0 |
| 2022-12-19 | 0 | 0 | 34.8 | 19.4 | 13 | 20.7 | 40.7 | 0 | 61.3 | extremo | 0 |
| 2022-12-20 | 0 | 0 | 33.8 | 18.9 | 15 | 20.3 | 40 | 0 | 59.7 | extremo | 0 |
| 2022-12-21 | 0 | 0 | 32.7 | 19.9 | 16 | 21.7 | 42.8 | 0 | 59.8 | extremo | 0 |
| 2022-12-22 | 0 | 0 | 31.7 | 19.7 | 18 | 22 | 43.6 | 0 | 57.7 | extremo | 0 |
| 2022-12-23 | 0 | 0 | 31 | 18.9 | 16 | 19.9 | 40.3 | 0 | 55.3 | extremo | 0 |
| 2022-12-24 | 0 | 0 | 30.8 | 20.1 | 15 | 20.6 | 40.7 | 0 | 56.5 | extremo | 0 |
| 2022-12-25 | 0 | 0 | 31 | 19 | 18 | 20.3 | 41 | 0 | 54.8 | extremo | 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
- 7,401ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 4days
- 12 Dec 2022 – 15 Dec 2022
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- communes
- Started on
- 12 Dec
- 2022
- Heat detections
- 182
- in a single hotspot: 125 MW
- Danger at start
- 54
- Extreme · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 1.3GW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
HOTSPOTS BY DAY
12 Dec15 Dec
15 Dec 2022
How it evolved, day by day
12 Dec
13 Dec
14 Dec
15 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
36°high
34km/h · peak gust
9%lowest humidity
It had gone 59 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
94% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 274 ha in 2016, 3,578 ha in 2017, 236 ha in 2018, 3,572 ha in 2019, 529 ha in 2020, 4,701 ha in 2021. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 6,946 ha that had burned before.
- 4,401 ha Tanguiéta fire, January 2021 27,701 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 3,128 ha Tanguiéta fire, November 2017 8,094 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,901 ha Tanguiéta fire, December 2019 10,800 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,556 ha Tanguiéta fire, December 2019 3,463 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 529 ha Tanguiéta fire, December 2020 4,557 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 451 ha Tanguiéta fire, December 2017 2,423 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 299 ha Tanguiéta fire, November 2021 1,768 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 236 ha Tanguiéta fire, May 2018 1,180 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 started7,457 ha reached on 12 Dec1.3 %
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 area< 0.1 ha
Residents< 20
Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable 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)
Started with Very dry air: 49 % of the area in Benin
| Day | High | Min. humidity | Peak gust | Rain | Danger (FWI) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 12 Dec | 35.9 °C | 12 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 13 Dec | 36.4 °C | 12 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 14 Dec | 36.3 °C | 9 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 15 Dec | 36.1 °C | 10 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 16 Dec after | 36.2 °C | 11 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 17 Dec after | 34.2 °C | 14 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 18 Dec after | 35.0 °C | 15 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 57 |
| 19 Dec after | 34.8 °C | 13 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 61 |
| 20 Dec after | 33.8 °C | 15 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 60 |
| 21 Dec after | 32.7 °C | 16 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 60 |
| 22 Dec after | 31.7 °C | 18 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 58 |
| 23 Dec after | 31.0 °C | 16 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 55 |
| 24 Dec after | 30.8 °C | 15 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 56 |
| 25 Dec after | 31.0 °C | 18 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 55 |
Its twins: fires that started in the same weather
It started with an FWI of 54.1, a minimum humidity of 12% and 59 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 101.
FWI at the start
54.1
Minimum humidity
12 %
Days without rain
59
this fire
chosen twins
rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar
Outlines of the closest twins
This fire · Tanguiéta fire, 12 December 2022
7,401 ha
4 days
FWI 54.1
Min. humidity 12 %
Tanguiéta fire, February 2024
3,486 ha
3 days
FWI 52.8
Min. humidity 12 %
9 km away, in 2024
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
Tanguiéta fire, December 2020
1,203 ha
1 day
FWI 53.6
Min. humidity 11 %
9 km away, in 2020
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
Banikoara fire, December 2017
1,092 ha
4 days
FWI 54.4
Min. humidity 12 %
85 km away, in 2017
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
Tanguiéta fire, January 2017
1,005 ha
3 days
FWI 54.8
Min. humidity 11 %
12 km away, in 2017
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
Pama fire, January 2017
1,658 ha
2 days
FWI 54.2
Min. humidity 13 %
52 km away, in 2017
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
What happened to them
- 4 days
- median duration
- 1,502 ha
- median area
- 100 %
- went past 1,000 ha
- —
- rain at the end (median; 0 of 101 had it)
It was 4.9 times larger than the median of its twins and lasted 4 days, against 4 days.
Only 5 of its 101 twins burned more. The weather on the first day does not explain everything: the wind in the following days, the fuel and the firefighting also count. In none of them did 1 mm fall in the ten days after the end: they all went out without rain.
This is a bank of analogues: it shows what usually happens, not what will happen. With fewer than 15 twins we give no figures. How we calculate it
How it ended
—first rain
—no rain in ten days
34km/h · max. gust
It was considered over on 15 Dec, and not even 1 mm fell in the following ten days: it went out without rain. None of its 101 twins had rain when they ended.
Weather on this page: Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)
How a twin is chosen
- Same area: fires that have already ended, less than 250 km from this one, since 2016.
- Same start: we compare the FWI on the first day, the minimum humidity that day and the run of days without rain before it. The slider sets how much they may differ.
- Only pages with final weather data (ERA5 reanalysis) calculated in the same way as this fire’s; agricultural and grass burns and pages with data under review are left out.
- Fires burning at the same time as this one (a week before or after) are left out: they share the same spell of weather and do not count as a precedent.
- They are sorted by similarity, and the outlines of the first five are drawn.
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
↔
Before · 5 Dec 2022
After · 22 Dec 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.
The smoke
CAMS · CopernicusOn 16 December 2022 the air beside the fire reached 204 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 121: 8.1 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
PM2.5 peak204 µg/m³
Days over the guideline7 days
PM10301 µg/m³
Optical depth1.38
WHO 15
10 Dec12 Dec14 Dec16 Dec18 Dec
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 · 182Every 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?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 12 December 2022 and 15 December 2022: 4 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 7,401 hectares (74.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Tanguiéta (7,457 ha, 1.3 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 36.4 °C, humidity dropped to 9 % and gusts hit 34 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 Benin (geoBoundaries). It is not an official report.
- How did the fires that started in similar weather in this area end?
- Fires less than 250 km away that started since 2016 with a similar FWI, humidity and dry spell: 101. Their median duration was 4 days and their median area 1,502 ha; 100 % went past 1,000 ha. Only 5 of its 101 twins burned more. The weather on the first day does not explain everything: the wind in the following days, the fuel and the firefighting also count. In none of them did 1 mm fall in the ten days after the end: they all went out without rain.
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.
- Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 182 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.