Thionthian fire, April 2023 Thionthian, Tarihoye
The fire started on 12 April 2023 in Thionthian, Guinea, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,406 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 171th largest in Kindia since 2016 (of 242 with a page). Number 40 in Guinea in 2023, of 79.
- Burnt area
- 2,406ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 6days
- 12 Apr 2023 – 17 Apr 2023
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- sub-prefectures
- Started on
- 12 Apr
- 2023
- Heat detections
- 51
- in a single hotspot: 290 MW
- Energy released
- 2.2GW
- sum of detected power
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
This area had burned before
94% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,735 ha in 2016, 9 ha in 2017, 1,065 ha in 2018, 3 ha in 2019, 1,030 ha in 2020, 880 ha in 2021, 517 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,256 ha that had burned before.
- 1,735 ha Thionthian fire, April 2016 4,512 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,030 ha Thionthian fire, April 2020 3,331 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 697 ha Thionthian fire, April 2021 5,023 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 572 ha Thionthian fire, April 2018 3,634 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 183 ha Tarihoye fire, April 2021 4,522 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 9 ha Thionthian fire, April 2017 7,952 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
Thionthian where it started2,383 ha reached on 12 Apr3.7 %
-
38 ha0.1 %
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.
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
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 · 51Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 9,219 haSogolon11 April 2017 · 10 days · 17 km away
- 9,116 haThionthian9 April 2016 · 11 days · 19 km away
- 9,669 haSogolonApril 2026 · 21 days · 22 km away
- 10,531 haKonsotami19 April 2018 · 8 days · 24 km away
- 14,183 haKonsotami19 April 2018 · 14 days · 26 km away
- 16,941 haKonsotami12 April 2017 · 9 days · 33 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Thionthian fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 12 April 2023 and 17 April 2023: 6 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 2,406 hectares (24.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Thionthian (2,383 ha, 3.7 %); Tarihoye (38 ha, 0.1 %).
- Where does this data come from?
- From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Guinea (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.
Report an error
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 3.0 Intergovernmental Organisations (CC BY 3.0 IGO)). 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.