Burned area
satellite only5,797ha
Union of 2 GWIS (Copernicus) perimeters: overlapping areas count once.
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus)
- Date
- 16 Dec 2019 – 26 Dec 2019
+− cross-check
No official record is matched to this page to compare it with.
GH · Ghana · –
West Gonja fire, 16 December 2019 West Gonja
Out · last detection 26 Dec 2019, 13:50 UTC
The fire started on 16 December 2019 in West Gonja, Ghana, and satellites saw it burning for 11 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,797 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 15th largest in Savannah since 2016 (of 242 with a page). Number 11 in Ghana in 2019, of 127.
Use this data
Compare with…
Use this data
Fire page data · version 2026-10-27matches 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 only11days
16 Dec 2019 to 26 Dec 2019: first and last day with fire on the page.
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
- Date
- last detection: 26 Dec 2019, 13:50 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 only16 Dec 2019
First day with fire seen by the satellites or the perimeter.
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
- Date
- 16 Dec 2019
+− cross-check
No official record is matched to this page, so the alert time and the cause are not known here.
Hotspots
satellite only170
VIIRS detections at 375 m. Most intense hotspot: 93 MW.
- Source
- NASA FIRMS · VIIRS (Suomi NPP)
- Date
- 16 Dec 2019 – 26 Dec 2019
+− 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 only828MW
Total radiative power on 23 December 2019; hotspots that day: 52.
- Source
- NASA FIRMS · VIIRS (FRP)
- Date
- 23 Dec 2019
+− 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
model40.7FWI · very high
Fire Weather Index (Canadian system) computed by WorldFires for the day the fire started. Consecutive days without rain before: 32.
- Source
- WorldFires calculation (Canadian FWI system)
- Date
- 16 Dec 2019, 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
model36.0°C · 13% RH
High of 36.0 °C and minimum humidity of 13% on 23 December 2019; gusts of 38 km/h on 23 December 2019.
- Source
- weather model at the fire’s grid cell
- Date
- 16 Dec 2019 – 26 Dec 2019
- 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 weatherWeather and FWI computed from the ERA5 reanalysis
-
logLast day with fire: 25 December 2019 → 26 December 2019.
-
logStart date: 19 December 2019 → 16 December 2019.
-
· reconstructed GHSLPopulation and built-up area computed
What was saved on 27 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
- 5,813 ha
- Dates
- 16 Dec 2019 – 26 Dec 2019
- Name
- West Gonja
- Official record
- —
Versioned permanent link
https://worldfires.org/en/fire/west-gonja-2019-12-5?v=2026-10-27A 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 west-gonja-2019-12-5.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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2019-12-16 | 3 | 9 | 35.8 | 20.8 | 18 | 9.7 | 26.6 | 0 | 40.7 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2019-12-17 | 4 | 18 | 35.6 | 20.5 | 19 | 9.7 | 25.9 | 0 | 41.1 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2019-12-18 | 10 | 131 | 35.2 | 20.6 | 21 | 9.4 | 20.2 | 0 | 39.8 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2019-12-19 | 10 | 70 | 34.7 | 21.5 | 20 | 12.8 | 32.8 | 0 | 43.5 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2019-12-20 | 26 | 185 | 35.2 | 21.4 | 21 | 13.8 | 34.2 | 0 | 44.6 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2019-12-21 | 4 | 14 | 35.4 | 20.3 | 20 | 9.4 | 24.5 | 0 | 40.6 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2019-12-22 | 10 | 41 | 35.9 | 20.4 | 17 | 13 | 33.1 | 0 | 44.7 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2019-12-23 | 52 | 828 | 36 | 20.3 | 13 | 16.2 | 38.5 | 0 | 49.4 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2019-12-24 | 43 | 749 | 35.3 | 19 | 13 | 12.8 | 32.4 | 0 | 46.1 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2019-12-25 | 0 | 0 | 35.3 | 20 | 13 | 10 | 23.8 | 0 | 43.6 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2019-12-26 | 8 | 276 | 35.2 | 18.5 | 16 | 9.4 | 25.9 | 0 | 43.4 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2019-12-27 | 0 | 0 | 34.2 | 19.9 | 18 | 9.4 | 26.3 | 0 | 43.4 | muy_alto | 0 |
| 2019-12-28 | 0 | 0 | 34.8 | 20.4 | 19 | 9.4 | 25.2 | 0 | 43.2 | muy_alto | 0 |
| 2019-12-29 | 0 | 0 | 35.6 | 20.6 | 18 | 10 | 27 | 0 | 44.2 | muy_alto | 0 |
| 2019-12-30 | 0 | 0 | 35 | 21 | 15 | 12.6 | 31.7 | 0 | 47.3 | muy_alto | 0 |
| 2019-12-31 | 0 | 0 | 34.1 | 19.7 | 16 | 15 | 36.7 | 0 | 50.4 | extremo | 0 |
| 2020-01-01 | 0 | 0 | 33.6 | 18.5 | 15 | 15.3 | 37.1 | 0 | 51.1 | extremo | 0 |
| 2020-01-02 | 0 | 0 | 30.9 | 18.8 | 18 | 16.3 | 37.8 | 0 | 50 | muy_alto | 0 |
| 2020-01-03 | 0 | 0 | 29.5 | 16.8 | 18 | 15 | 34.9 | 0 | 47.4 | muy_alto | 0 |
| 2020-01-04 | 0 | 0 | 30.2 | 17.2 | 19 | 12.5 | 30.2 | 0 | 44.2 | muy_alto | 0 |
| 2020-01-05 | 0 | 0 | 32.5 | 17.5 | 20 | 10.3 | 26.6 | 0 | 42.3 | muy_alto | 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
- 5,797ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 11days
- 16 Dec 2019 – 26 Dec 2019
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- districts
- Started on
- 16 Dec
- 2019
- Heat detections
- 170
- in a single hotspot: 93 MW
- Danger at start
- 41
- Very high · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 232MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
HOTSPOTS BY DAY
16 Dec26 Dec
26 Dec 2019
How it evolved, day by day
16 Dec
18 Dec
20 Dec
23 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
38km/h · peak gust
13%lowest humidity
It had gone 32 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
23% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 178 ha in 2016, 1,304 ha in 2017. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,338 ha that had burned before.
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
-
West Gonja where it started5,852 ha reached on 16 Dec1.2 %
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 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)
| Day | High | Min. humidity | Peak gust | Rain | Danger (FWI) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 16 Dec | 35.8 °C | 18 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 17 Dec | 35.6 °C | 19 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 18 Dec | 35.2 °C | 21 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 19 Dec | 34.7 °C | 20 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 20 Dec | 35.2 °C | 21 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 21 Dec | 35.4 °C | 20 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 22 Dec | 35.9 °C | 17 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 23 Dec | 36.0 °C | 13 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 24 Dec | 35.3 °C | 13 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 25 Dec | 35.3 °C | 13 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 26 Dec | 35.2 °C | 16 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 27 Dec after | 34.2 °C | 18 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 28 Dec after | 34.8 °C | 19 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 29 Dec after | 35.6 °C | 18 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 30 Dec after | 35.0 °C | 15 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 31 Dec after | 34.1 °C | 16 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 50 |
| 1 Jan after | 33.6 °C | 15 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 2 Jan after | 30.9 °C | 18 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 50 |
| 3 Jan after | 29.5 °C | 18 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 4 Jan after | 30.2 °C | 19 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 5 Jan after | 32.5 °C | 20 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
Its twins: fires that started in the same weather
It started with an FWI of 40.7, a minimum humidity of 18% and 32 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 103.
FWI at the start
40.7
Minimum humidity
18 %
Days without rain
32
this fire
chosen twins
rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar
Outlines of the closest twins
This fire · West Gonja fire, 16 December 2019
5,797 ha
11 days
FWI 40.7
Min. humidity 18 %
Wa East fire, November 2022
2,241 ha
8 days
FWI 40.9
Min. humidity 18 %
101 km away, in 2022
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
Parc national de la Comoé fire, December 2021
1,587 ha
13 days
FWI 41.3
Min. humidity 18 %
171 km away, in 2021
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
Parc national de la Comoé fire, December 2018
2,013 ha
6 days
FWI 40.0
Min. humidity 19 %
162 km away, in 2018
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
Kumbungu fire, December 2021
3,782 ha
12 days
FWI 40.7
Min. humidity 17 %
118 km away, in 2021
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
North Gonja fire, December 2018
3,480 ha
9 days
FWI 42.0
Min. humidity 17 %
43 km away, in 2018
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
What happened to them
- 8 days
- median duration
- 2,075 ha
- median area
- 100 %
- went past 1,000 ha
- 1.8 mm
- rain at the end (median; 7 of 103 had it)
It was 2.8 times larger than the median of its twins and lasted 11 days, against 8 days.
Only 2 of its 103 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 96 of 103, 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 1.8 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
—first rain
—no rain in ten days
38km/h · max. gust
It was considered over on 26 Dec, and not even 1 mm fell in the following ten days: it went out without rain. Twins with rain when they ended: 7 of 103, with a median of 1.8 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.
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
↔
Before · 9 Dec 2019
After · 2 Jan 2020
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.
Detections table · 170Every 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
- 16,123 haWest Gonja5 December 2023 · 29 days · 13 km away
- 16,387 haWest Gonja19 December 2024 · 11 days · 16 km away
- 13,009 haWest Gonja19 December 2020 · 15 days · 23 km away
- 12,895 haWest Gonja14 December 2019 · 23 days · 24 km away
- 31,715 haWest Gonja11 November 2025 · 24 days · 30 km away
- 9,916 haNorth Gonja3 December 2023 · 18 days · 33 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the West Gonja fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 16 December 2019 to 26 December 2019 (11 days). The perimeter dates it from 19 December 2019 to 25 December 2019.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 5,797 hectares (58.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered West Gonja (5,852 ha, 1.2 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 36.0 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 38 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 49, class Very high.
- Where does this data come from?
- From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Ghana (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: 103. Their median duration was 8 days and their median area 2,075 ha; 100 % went past 1,000 ha. Only 2 of its 103 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 96 of 103, 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 1.8 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: 112 · Emergency number and official warnings
Satellite cross-check
History of this page · 2 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
- Last day with fire: 25 December 2019 → 26 December 2019.
- Start date: 19 December 2019 → 16 December 2019.
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 adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 19 December 2019 to 25 December 2019. 170 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 (Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)). 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.