Burned area
satellite only17,977ha
Union of 2 GWIS (Copernicus) perimeters: overlapping areas count once.
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus)
- Date
- 2 Dec 2024 – 18 Dec 2024
+− cross-check
No official record is matched to this page to compare it with.
BJ · Benin · –
Tanguiéta fire, 2 December 2024 Tanguiéta
Out · last detection 18 Dec 2024, 13:45 UTC
The fire started on 2 December 2024 in Tanguiéta, Benin, and satellites saw it burning for 17 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 17,977 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 12th largest in Atakora since 2016 (of 420 with a page). Number 3 in Benin in 2024, of 86.
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 only17days
2 Dec 2024 to 18 Dec 2024: first and last day with fire on the page.
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
- Date
- last detection: 18 Dec 2024, 13:45 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 2024
First day with fire seen by the satellites or the perimeter.
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
- Date
- 2 Dec 2024
+− cross-check
No official record is matched to this page, so the alert time and the cause are not known here.
Hotspots
satellite only704
VIIRS detections at 375 m. Most intense hotspot: 153 MW.
- Source
- NASA FIRMS · VIIRS (Suomi NPP)
- Date
- 2 Dec 2024 – 18 Dec 2024
+− 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 only3,110MW
Total radiative power on 6 December 2024; hotspots that day: 148.
- Source
- NASA FIRMS · VIIRS (FRP)
- Date
- 6 Dec 2024
+− 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
model45.6FWI · very high
Fire Weather Index (Canadian system) computed by WorldFires for the day the fire started. Consecutive days without rain before: 45.
- Source
- WorldFires calculation (Canadian FWI system)
- Date
- 2 Dec 2024, 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
model37.4°C · 16% RH
High of 37.4 °C and minimum humidity of 16% on 11 December 2024; gusts of 42 km/h on 14 December 2024.
- Source
- weather model at the fire’s grid cell
- Date
- 2 Dec 2024 – 18 Dec 2024
- 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
- 17,981 ha
- Dates
- 2 Dec 2024 – 18 Dec 2024
- Name
- Tanguiéta
- Official record
- —
Versioned permanent link
https://worldfires.org/en/fire/tanguieta-2024-12-2?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-2024-12-2.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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2024-12-02 | 0 | 0 | 35.4 | 20.6 | 17 | 15.2 | 33.1 | 0 | 45.6 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2024-12-03 | 23 | 659 | 35.5 | 21.4 | 16 | 15.3 | 32.8 | 0 | 46.2 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2024-12-04 | 18 | 71 | 34.1 | 19.8 | 15 | 16.5 | 36.4 | 0 | 48 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2024-12-05 | 35 | 667 | 34.6 | 17.7 | 14 | 19.3 | 40.7 | 0 | 51.7 | extremo | 1 |
| 2024-12-06 | 148 | 3,110 | 33.6 | 17.7 | 15 | 13.6 | 32.4 | 0 | 45.7 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2024-12-07 | 109 | 556 | 34.2 | 18.1 | 15 | 16.9 | 37.4 | 0 | 49.8 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2024-12-08 | 32 | 92 | 32.9 | 20.3 | 17 | 17.5 | 36 | 0 | 50.7 | extremo | 1 |
| 2024-12-09 | 75 | 284 | 34.5 | 19 | 17 | 14 | 31.7 | 0 | 47.2 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2024-12-10 | 75 | 1,016 | 36.3 | 20.1 | 18 | 13.2 | 32.4 | 0 | 46.7 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2024-12-11 | 6 | 8 | 37.4 | 20.9 | 16 | 18.4 | 38.2 | 0 | 53.1 | extremo | 1 |
| 2024-12-12 | 25 | 76 | 35.8 | 22.4 | 16 | 18.3 | 37.8 | 0 | 53.4 | extremo | 1 |
| 2024-12-13 | 50 | 673 | 36.7 | 19.4 | 11 | 18.2 | 37.4 | 0 | 54.7 | extremo | 1 |
| 2024-12-14 | 35 | 291 | 36.4 | 20.7 | 8 | 20.7 | 42.1 | 0 | 61.1 | extremo | 1 |
| 2024-12-15 | 23 | 140 | 35 | 18.6 | 10 | 18.3 | 38.5 | 0 | 58.4 | extremo | 1 |
| 2024-12-16 | 24 | 151 | 34.1 | 17.9 | 13 | 16.8 | 34.9 | 0 | 56.1 | extremo | 1 |
| 2024-12-17 | 15 | 191 | 34.3 | 17.4 | 15 | 15.5 | 33.8 | 0 | 53.2 | extremo | 1 |
| 2024-12-18 | 11 | 54 | 33.6 | 19.6 | 12 | 19.8 | 41 | 0 | 59 | extremo | 1 |
| 2024-12-19 | 0 | 0 | 30.6 | 17.8 | 15 | 22.2 | 45 | 0 | 59.4 | extremo | 0 |
| 2024-12-20 | 0 | 0 | 29.8 | 16.5 | 17 | 20.4 | 41.4 | 0 | 54.5 | extremo | 0 |
| 2024-12-21 | 0 | 0 | 31.1 | 17 | 18 | 17.7 | 34.9 | 0 | 50.9 | extremo | 0 |
| 2024-12-22 | 0 | 0 | 31.9 | 18.2 | 18 | 15.9 | 33.5 | 0 | 49.1 | muy_alto | 0 |
| 2024-12-23 | 0 | 0 | 33.5 | 18.7 | 16 | 15.1 | 32 | 0 | 48.5 | muy_alto | 0 |
| 2024-12-24 | 0 | 0 | 34.4 | 18.9 | 17 | 13.2 | 28.8 | 0 | 46.7 | muy_alto | 0 |
| 2024-12-25 | 0 | 0 | 35.3 | 18.9 | 13 | 13.8 | 31 | 0 | 48 | muy_alto | 0 |
| 2024-12-26 | 0 | 0 | 35.3 | 19.5 | 10 | 15.1 | 33.1 | 0 | 52.3 | extremo | 0 |
| 2024-12-27 | 0 | 0 | 34.3 | 17.9 | 10 | 16.7 | 36 | 0 | 54.6 | extremo | 0 |
| 2024-12-28 | 0 | 0 | 34.7 | 18.6 | 11 | 15.5 | 33.1 | 0 | 53.4 | 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
- 17,977ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 17days
- 2 Dec 2024 – 18 Dec 2024
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- communes
- Started on
- 2 Dec
- 2024
- Heat detections
- 704
- in a single hotspot: 153 MW
- Danger at start
- 46
- Very high · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 502MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
HOTSPOTS BY DAY
2 Dec18 Dec
18 Dec 2024
How it evolved, day by day
3 Dec
6 Dec
11 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
37°high
42km/h · peak gust
8%lowest humidity
It had gone 45 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
99% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,705 ha in 2016, 4,138 ha in 2017, 351 ha in 2018, 10,722 ha in 2019, 6,488 ha in 2020, 11,026 ha in 2021, 12,985 ha in 2022, 1,232 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 17,793 ha that had burned before.
- 10,366 ha Tanguiéta fire, November 2019 36,910 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 9,133 ha Tanguiéta fire, December 2022 25,995 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 6,112 ha Tanguiéta fire, December 2020 12,026 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 4,932 ha Tanguiéta fire, January 2021 79,561 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,183 ha Tanguiéta fire, November 2021 3,015 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,870 ha Tanguiéta fire, November 2017 2,457 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,591 ha Tanguiéta fire, November 2017 2,526 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,509 ha Tanguiéta fire, December 2021 6,557 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 started18,001 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 2025Built-up area0.11 ha
Residents< 20
Inside the perimeter there were about 0.11 hectares of built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2025, 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. The GHSL 2025 epoch is a projection made from 2020 and earlier data.
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2 Dec | 35.4 °C | 17 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 3 Dec | 35.5 °C | 16 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 4 Dec | 34.1 °C | 15 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 5 Dec | 34.6 °C | 14 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 6 Dec | 33.6 °C | 15 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 7 Dec | 34.2 °C | 15 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 50 |
| 8 Dec | 32.9 °C | 17 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 9 Dec | 34.5 °C | 17 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 10 Dec | 36.3 °C | 18 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 11 Dec | 37.4 °C | 16 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 12 Dec | 35.8 °C | 16 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 13 Dec | 36.7 °C | 11 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 55 |
| 14 Dec | 36.4 °C | 8 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 61 |
| 15 Dec | 35.0 °C | 10 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 58 |
| 16 Dec | 34.1 °C | 13 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 56 |
| 17 Dec | 34.3 °C | 15 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 18 Dec | 33.6 °C | 12 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 59 |
| 19 Dec after | 30.6 °C | 15 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 59 |
| 20 Dec after | 29.8 °C | 17 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 21 Dec after | 31.1 °C | 18 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 22 Dec after | 31.9 °C | 18 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 23 Dec after | 33.5 °C | 16 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 24 Dec after | 34.4 °C | 17 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 25 Dec after | 35.3 °C | 13 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 26 Dec after | 35.3 °C | 10 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 27 Dec after | 34.3 °C | 10 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 55 |
| 28 Dec after | 34.7 °C | 11 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
Its twins: fires that started in the same weather
It started with an FWI of 45.6, a minimum humidity of 17% and 45 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 33.
FWI at the start
45.6
Minimum humidity
17 %
Days without rain
45
this fire
chosen twins
rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar
Outlines of the closest twins
This fire · Tanguiéta fire, 2 December 2024
17,977 ha
17 days
FWI 45.6
Min. humidity 17 %
Matéri fire, November 2020
2,448 ha
6 days
FWI 45.7
Min. humidity 17 %
42 km away, in 2020
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
Lôgbou fire, November 2016
1,644 ha
5 days
FWI 44.5
Min. humidity 17 %
47 km away, in 2016
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
Tanguiéta fire, November 2022
1,582 ha
2 days
FWI 46.7
Min. humidity 17 %
32 km away, in 2022
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
Kérou fire, December 2019
1,324 ha
4 days
FWI 46.6
Min. humidity 17 %
50 km away, in 2019
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
Tanguiéta fire, November 2017
1,364 ha
2 days
FWI 45.9
Min. humidity 17 %
5 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
- 1,644 ha
- median area
- 100 %
- went past 1,000 ha
- —
- rain at the end (median; 0 of 33 had it)
It was 10.9 times larger than the median of its twins and lasted 17 days, against 4 days.
None of its 33 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
42km/h · max. gust
It was considered over on 18 Dec, and not even 1 mm fell in the following ten days: it went out without rain. None of its 33 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 · 25 Nov 2024
After · 25 Dec 2024
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 2024 the air beside the fire reached 147 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 120: 8.0 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
PM2.5 peak147 µg/m³
Days over the guideline22 days
PM10713 µg/m³
Optical depth1.00
WHO 15
30 Nov5 Dec10 Dec15 Dec20 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 · 704Every 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 2 December 2024 and 18 December 2024: 17 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 17,977 hectares (179.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Tanguiéta (18,001 ha, 3.2 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 37.4 °C, humidity dropped to 8 % and gusts hit 42 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 61, 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: 33. Their median duration was 4 days and their median area 1,644 ha; 100 % went past 1,000 ha. None of its 33 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; 2 polygons grouped in this page.
- Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 704 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 2025, 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.