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CI · Côte d’Ivoire · –

Tiébissou fire, February 2024 Tiébissou

Out · last detection 8 Feb 2024, 13:32 UTC

The fire started on 3 February 2024 in Tiébissou, Côte d’Ivoire, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 1,848 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 27th largest in Lacs since 2016 (of 116 with a page). Number 53 in Côte d’Ivoire in 2024, of 167.

The power measured by the satellite is low (25.3 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Burnt area
1,848ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
6days
3 Feb 2024 – 8 Feb 2024
Municipalities hit
1
sub-prefectures
Started on
3 Feb
2024
Heat detections
64
in a single hotspot: 25 MW
Danger at start
42
Very high · FWI index
Average daily power
266MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 3 Feb8 Feb
8 Feb 2024

How it evolved, day by day

6 Feb 2024 · 399 MW · 31 7 Feb 2024 · 263 MW · 21 8 Feb 2024 · 137 MW · 12
6 Feb 7 Feb 8 Feb

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
31km/h · peak gust
11%lowest humidity

It had gone 24 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.9 mm on 18 Feb.

This area had burned before

40% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 736 ha in 2016.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 1.2% of the area of London (18 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each town

  1. Tiébissou where it started
    1,860 ha reached on 6 Feb
    2.0 %

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 2025
Built-up area1.7 ha
Residents≈ 200

Inside the perimeter there were about 1.7 hectares of built-up land and about 200 residents (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)
3 Feb 36.0 °C 18 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
4 Feb 36.0 °C 17 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
5 Feb 35.5 °C 22 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
6 Feb 36.1 °C 11 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
7 Feb 36.7 °C 12 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
8 Feb 36.6 °C 19 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
9 Feb after 37.0 °C 28 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
10 Feb after 37.6 °C 25 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
11 Feb after 37.7 °C 31 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
12 Feb after 38.2 °C 29 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
13 Feb after 37.9 °C 34 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
14 Feb after 39.3 °C 29 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
15 Feb after 38.9 °C 28 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
16 Feb after 38.6 °C 33 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
17 Feb after 36.6 °C 35 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
18 Feb after 38.1 °C 36 % 27 km/h 1.9 mm High 25

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 41.6, a minimum humidity of 18% and 24 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 71.

FWI at the start 41.6
Minimum humidity 18 %
Days without rain 24
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Ouellé fire, February 2016
4,285 ha 5 days FWI 41.8 Min. humidity 18 % 132 km away, in 2016

First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 2.9 mm on 15 Feb.

What happened to them

5 days
median duration
1,253 ha
median area
100 %
went past 1,000 ha
2.0 mm
rain at the end (median; 12 of 71 had it)

It burned an area similar to its twins (1,848 ha against a median of 1,253 ha) and lasted 6 days, against 5 days.

In 59 of 71, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 2.0 mm.

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

1.9 mmfirst rain
18 Feb10 days after it ended
31km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 8 Feb, and on 18 Feb 1.9 mm fell. We do not know whether the rain or the firefighters put it out. Twins with rain when they ended: 12 of 71, with a median of 2.0 mm.

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.

How we calculate it

Before and after, from space

Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.

Before · 27 Jan 2024
After · 15 Feb 2024

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 · Copernicus

On 6 February 2024 the air beside the fire reached 153 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 127: 8.4 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak153 µg/m³
Days over the guideline11 days
PM10246 µg/m³
Optical depth1.53
1 Feb4 Feb7 Feb10 Feb
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 · 64Every 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 timeSatelliteFRP (MW)LatLon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Côte d’Ivoire

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Tiébissou fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 3 February 2024 and 8 February 2024: 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 1,848 hectares (18.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Tiébissou (1,860 ha, 2.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.7 °C, humidity dropped to 11 % and gusts hit 31 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 47, class Very high.
Where does this data come from?
From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Côte d’Ivoire (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: 71. Their median duration was 5 days and their median area 1,253 ha; 100 % went past 1,000 ha. In 59 of 71, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 2.0 mm.

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.

Emergency number: 180 · Emergency number and official warnings

Satellite cross-check

History of this page Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.

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
What do you think is wrong?

We will only use your email to reply about this report. Privacy. This is not an emergency service: if there is a fire now, call 180.

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. 64 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.

How we build fire pages: methodology

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.