Skip to content
worldfires
en
LR · Liberia · –

Zorzor fire, 23 February 2025 Zorzor

Out · last detection 9 Mar 2025, 13:26 UTC

The fire started on 23 February 2025 in Zorzor, Liberia, and satellites saw it burning for 15 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,043 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 9th largest in Lofa since 2016 (of 202 with a page). The largest in Liberia in 2025, of 28.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Yarmein · 2020Zorzor · 2019Zorzor · 2016Zorzor · 2023

Burnt area
6,043ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
15days
23 Feb 2025 – 9 Mar 2025
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
23 Feb
2025
Heat detections
204
in a single hotspot: 139 MW
Danger at start
19
Moderate · FWI index
Average daily power
242MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 23 Feb9 Mar
9 Mar 2025

How it evolved, day by day

23 Feb 2025 · 31 MW · 4 24 Feb 2025 · 8 MW · 2 25 Feb 2025 · 152 MW · 5 26 Feb 2025 · 41 MW · 3 27 Feb 2025 · 71 MW · 7 28 Feb 2025 · 207 MW · 23 1 Mar 2025 · 488 MW · 26 2 Mar 2025 · 72 MW · 6 3 Mar 2025 · 1,280 MW · 44 4 Mar 2025 · 123 MW · 13 5 Mar 2025 · 28 MW · 5 6 Mar 2025 · 563 MW · 28 7 Mar 2025 · 242 MW · 13 8 Mar 2025 · 81 MW · 6 9 Mar 2025 · 245 MW · 19
23 Feb 26 Feb 3 Mar 7 Mar

Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.

The weather it burned in

38°high
39km/h · peak gust
17%lowest humidity

It had gone one day without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 4.4 mm on 16 Mar.

This area had burned before

68% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,673 ha in 2016, 921 ha in 2020, 738 ha in 2022, 1,095 ha in 2023, 1,026 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 4,101 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 3.8% of the area of London (60 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. Zorzor where it started
    3,802 ha reached on 23 Feb
    1.2 %

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 2025
Built-up area2.2 ha
Residents≈ 400

Inside the perimeter there were about 2.2 hectares of built-up land and about 400 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)
23 Feb 34.1 °C 35 % 34 km/h 0.4 mm Moderate 19
24 Feb 34.7 °C 29 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
25 Feb 35.3 °C 17 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
26 Feb 33.6 °C 18 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
27 Feb 34.2 °C 21 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
28 Feb 35.2 °C 28 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
1 Mar 35.9 °C 30 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
2 Mar 37.4 °C 27 % 37 km/h 0.1 mm High 35
3 Mar 37.9 °C 25 % 32 km/h 0.1 mm High 33
4 Mar 37.3 °C 18 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
5 Mar 35.8 °C 19 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
6 Mar 36.6 °C 26 % 33 km/h 0.1 mm Very high 39
7 Mar 36.6 °C 25 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
8 Mar 36.7 °C 24 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
9 Mar 36.5 °C 27 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
10 Mar after 37.4 °C 33 % 35 km/h 0.9 mm High 31
11 Mar after 34.8 °C 37 % 28 km/h 0.3 mm High 28
12 Mar after 36.4 °C 30 % 26 km/h 0.6 mm High 30
13 Mar after 35.7 °C 33 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
14 Mar after 35.5 °C 28 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
15 Mar after 35.9 °C 30 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
16 Mar after 36.0 °C 35 % 23 km/h 4.4 mm Low 11

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 19.0, a minimum humidity of 35% and 1 day without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 30.

FWI at the start 19.0
Minimum humidity 35 %
Days without rain 1
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Yarmein fire, February 2020
1,500 ha 11 days FWI 18.5 Min. humidity 35 % 92 km away, in 2020

First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 9.1 mm on 8 Mar.

See its page Compare with this fire

What happened to them

11 days
median duration
1,303 ha
median area
100 %
went past 1,000 ha
4.8 mm
rain at the end (median; 30 of 30 had it)

It was 4.6 times larger than the median of its twins and lasted 15 days, against 11 days.

None of its 30 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. All of them had rain in the ten days after the end: the first rainy day brought a median of 4.8 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

4.4 mmfirst rain
16 Mar7 days after it ended
39km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 9 Mar, and on 16 Mar 4.4 mm fell. We do not know whether the rain or the firefighters put it out. Twins with rain when they ended: 30 of 30, with a median of 4.8 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.

How we calculate it

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 16 Feb 2025
After · 16 Mar 2025

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 1 March 2025 the air beside the fire reached 169 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 107: 7.2 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak169 µg/m³
Days over the guideline19 days
PM10238 µg/m³
Optical depth1.54
22 Feb26 Feb2 Mar6 Mar10 Mar
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 · 204Every 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 Liberia

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Zorzor fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 23 February 2025 to 9 March 2025 (15 days). The perimeter dates it from 24 February 2025 to 9 March 2025.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 6,043 hectares (60.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Zorzor (3,802 ha, 1.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.9 °C, humidity dropped to 17 % and gusts hit 39 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 41, class Very high.
Where does this data come from?
From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Liberia (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: 30. Their median duration was 11 days and their median area 1,303 ha; 100 % went past 1,000 ha. None of its 30 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. All of them had rain in the ten days after the end: the first rainy day brought a median of 4.8 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.

Satellite cross-check

History of this page · 1 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
  1. Start date: 24 February 2025 → 23 February 2025.

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
What do you think is wrong?

We will only use your email to reply about this report. Privacy.

How we know this
  • Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery.
  • Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 24 February 2025 to 9 March 2025. 204 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 ADM2 (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.