Burned area
satellite only8,911ha
Union of 2 GWIS (Copernicus) perimeters: overlapping areas count once.
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus)
- Date
- 20 Dec 2024 – 29 Dec 2024
+− cross-check
No official record is matched to this page to compare it with.
BJ · Benin · –
Tanguiéta fire, 20 December 2024 Tanguiéta
Out · last detection 29 Dec 2024, 00:52 UTC
The fire started on 20 December 2024 in Tanguiéta, Benin, and satellites saw it burning for 10 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 8,911 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 26th largest in Atakora since 2016 (of 420 with a page). Number 5 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 only10days
20 Dec 2024 to 29 Dec 2024: first and last day with fire on the page.
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
- Date
- last detection: 29 Dec 2024, 00:52 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 only20 Dec 2024
First day with fire seen by the satellites or the perimeter.
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
- Date
- 20 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 only280
VIIRS detections at 375 m. Most intense hotspot: 195 MW.
- Source
- NASA FIRMS · VIIRS (Suomi NPP)
- Date
- 20 Dec 2024 – 29 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 only1,631MW
Total radiative power on 20 December 2024; hotspots that day: 43.
- Source
- NASA FIRMS · VIIRS (FRP)
- Date
- 20 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
model53.0FWI · extreme
Fire Weather Index (Canadian system) computed by WorldFires for the day the fire started. Consecutive days without rain before: 60.
- Source
- WorldFires calculation (Canadian FWI system)
- Date
- 20 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
model35.5°C · 14% RH
High of 35.5 °C and minimum humidity of 14% on 25 December 2024; gusts of 41 km/h on 20 December 2024.
- Source
- weather model at the fire’s grid cell
- Date
- 20 Dec 2024 – 29 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
- 8,921 ha
- Dates
- 20 Dec 2024 – 29 Dec 2024
- Name
- Tanguiéta
- Official record
- —
Versioned permanent link
https://worldfires.org/en/fire/tanguieta-2024-12-9?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-2024-12-9.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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2024-12-20 | 43 | 1,631 | 29.6 | 16.7 | 17 | 19.6 | 41 | 0 | 53 | extremo | 1 |
| 2024-12-21 | 9 | 28 | 31 | 17 | 18 | 17.4 | 35.3 | 0 | 50.1 | extremo | 1 |
| 2024-12-22 | 38 | 217 | 31.6 | 18.3 | 19 | 15.9 | 33.8 | 0 | 48.1 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2024-12-23 | 5 | 24 | 33.5 | 18.8 | 16 | 14.6 | 32 | 0 | 46.9 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2024-12-24 | 3 | 3 | 34.5 | 18.7 | 17 | 13.7 | 29.9 | 0 | 46.3 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2024-12-25 | 99 | 780 | 35.5 | 19.5 | 14 | 13.1 | 30.6 | 0 | 46.2 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2024-12-26 | 33 | 161 | 35.2 | 20 | 10 | 15.1 | 33.1 | 0 | 51.9 | extremo | 1 |
| 2024-12-27 | 21 | 37 | 34 | 18.4 | 10 | 16.7 | 36.4 | 0 | 54.2 | extremo | 1 |
| 2024-12-28 | 28 | 165 | 34.6 | 18.7 | 11 | 15.8 | 33.5 | 0 | 53.4 | extremo | 1 |
| 2024-12-29 | 1 | 1 | 35.1 | 18.2 | 13 | 12.2 | 28.8 | 0 | 49.5 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2024-12-30 | 0 | 0 | 36 | 20.1 | 15 | 14.6 | 32 | 0 | 52.6 | extremo | 0 |
| 2024-12-31 | 0 | 0 | 36.3 | 21.2 | 15 | 12.1 | 29.2 | 0 | 49.9 | muy_alto | 0 |
| 2025-01-01 | 0 | 0 | 36.3 | 21.3 | 16 | 11.6 | 29.2 | 0 | 49.6 | muy_alto | 0 |
| 2025-01-02 | 0 | 0 | 36.2 | 21.3 | 18 | 11.1 | 27.7 | 0 | 48 | muy_alto | 0 |
| 2025-01-03 | 0 | 0 | 36.5 | 21.9 | 17 | 12.4 | 29.5 | 0 | 49.7 | muy_alto | 0 |
| 2025-01-04 | 0 | 0 | 35.9 | 20.8 | 15 | 12.1 | 29.5 | 0 | 49.6 | muy_alto | 0 |
| 2025-01-05 | 0 | 0 | 36.3 | 21 | 14 | 13.1 | 32 | 0 | 51.1 | extremo | 0 |
| 2025-01-06 | 0 | 0 | 35.9 | 22 | 11 | 16.7 | 36.4 | 0 | 55.7 | extremo | 0 |
| 2025-01-07 | 0 | 0 | 35.9 | 20.2 | 14 | 17.9 | 38.2 | 0 | 57.6 | extremo | 0 |
| 2025-01-08 | 0 | 0 | 34.6 | 21.5 | 15 | 19.2 | 41.8 | 0 | 59.3 | 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
- 8,911ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 10days
- 20 Dec 2024 – 29 Dec 2024
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- communes
- Started on
- 20 Dec
- 2024
- Heat detections
- 280
- in a single hotspot: 195 MW
- Danger at start
- 53
- Extreme · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 305MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
HOTSPOTS BY DAY
20 Dec29 Dec
29 Dec 2024
How it evolved, day by day
20 Dec
22 Dec
24 Dec
26 Dec
28 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
41km/h · peak gust
10%lowest humidity
It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
100% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 3,765 ha in 2016, 2,137 ha in 2017, 7,817 ha in 2019, 927 ha in 2020, 4,057 ha in 2021, 8,174 ha in 2022, 4,031 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 8,901 ha that had burned before.
- 7,444 ha Tanguiéta fire, November 2019 49,627 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 4,982 ha Tanguiéta fire, February 2022 8,844 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 3,812 ha Tanguiéta fire, December 2023 8,446 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 3,611 ha Tanguiéta fire, December 2016 4,014 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,113 ha Tanguiéta fire, November 2017 4,492 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,874 ha Tanguiéta fire, January 2021 6,397 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,533 ha Tanguiéta fire, January 2021 79,561 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,457 ha Tanguiéta fire, December 2022 12,588 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 started8,988 ha reached on 20 Dec1.6 %
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 area< 0.1 ha
Residents< 20
Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable 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)
Started with 60 days without rain: 45 % of the area in Benin
| Day | High | Min. humidity | Peak gust | Rain | Danger (FWI) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 20 Dec | 29.6 °C | 17 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 21 Dec | 31.0 °C | 18 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 50 |
| 22 Dec | 31.6 °C | 19 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 23 Dec | 33.5 °C | 16 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 24 Dec | 34.5 °C | 17 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 25 Dec | 35.5 °C | 14 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 26 Dec | 35.2 °C | 10 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 27 Dec | 34.0 °C | 10 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 28 Dec | 34.6 °C | 11 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 29 Dec | 35.1 °C | 13 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 50 |
| 30 Dec after | 36.0 °C | 15 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 31 Dec after | 36.3 °C | 15 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 50 |
| 1 Jan after | 36.3 °C | 16 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 50 |
| 2 Jan after | 36.2 °C | 18 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 3 Jan after | 36.5 °C | 17 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 50 |
| 4 Jan after | 35.9 °C | 15 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 50 |
| 5 Jan after | 36.3 °C | 14 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 6 Jan after | 35.9 °C | 11 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 56 |
| 7 Jan after | 35.9 °C | 14 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 58 |
| 8 Jan after | 34.6 °C | 15 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 59 |
Its twins: fires that started in the same weather
It started with an FWI of 53.0, a minimum humidity of 17% and more than two months without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 69.
FWI at the start
53.0
Minimum humidity
17 %
Days without rain
60+
this fire
chosen twins
rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar
Outlines of the closest twins
This fire · Tanguiéta fire, 20 December 2024
8,911 ha
10 days
FWI 53.0
Min. humidity 17 %
Kérou fire, December 2017
1,065 ha
4 days
FWI 53.8
Min. humidity 17 %
33 km away, in 2017
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
Karimama fire, December 2022
1,034 ha
9 days
FWI 52.9
Min. humidity 17 %
105 km away, in 2022
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
Tanguiéta fire, December 2022
12,197 ha
4 days
FWI 51.3
Min. humidity 17 %
40 km away, in 2022
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
Banikoara fire, January 2017
1,085 ha
2 days
FWI 54.1
Min. humidity 17 %
80 km away, in 2017
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
Banikoara fire, December 2017
1,072 ha
3 days
FWI 52.6
Min. humidity 18 %
65 km away, in 2017
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
What happened to them
- 5 days
- median duration
- 1,474 ha
- median area
- 100 %
- went past 1,000 ha
- —
- rain at the end (median; 0 of 69 had it)
It was 6.0 times larger than the median of its twins and lasted 10 days, against 5 days.
Only 2 of its 69 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
41km/h · max. gust
It was considered over on 29 Dec, and not even 1 mm fell in the following ten days: it went out without rain. None of its 69 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 · 13 Dec 2024
After · 5 Jan 2025
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 19 December 2024 the air beside the fire reached 139 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 117: 7.8 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
PM2.5 peak139 µg/m³
Days over the guideline15 days
PM10686 µg/m³
Optical depth0.87
WHO 15
18 Dec21 Dec24 Dec27 Dec30 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 · 280Every 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
- 27,701 haTanguiéta15 January 2021 · 10 days · 5 km away
- 79,561 haTanguiéta14 January 2021 · 31 days · 10 km away
- 49,627 haTanguiéta24 November 2019 · 36 days · 11 km away
- 56,864 haTanguiéta24 November 2024 · 28 days · 32 km away
- 76,309 haTanguiéta5 January 2022 · 48 days · 40 km away
- 36,910 haTanguiéta23 November 2019 · 20 days · 40 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Tanguiéta fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 20 December 2024 and 29 December 2024: 10 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 8,911 hectares (89.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Tanguiéta (8,988 ha, 1.6 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 35.5 °C, humidity dropped to 10 % and gusts hit 41 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: 69. Their median duration was 5 days and their median area 1,474 ha; 100 % went past 1,000 ha. Only 2 of its 69 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. 280 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.