A year of fire across Africa shows how predictable, low‑intensity burning patterns are starting to tip toward more unpredictable, intense events.
More than half of the world’s annual burned land is in Africa, mostly in dry‑season savannas where fires are often set for farming or grazing. These burns are common, typically low‑intensity, and part of the region’s natural cycle.
But this pattern is beginning to shift. Data from 2024 shows some of the clearest signs yet that Africa’s fire regime is changing, with climate change nudging conditions toward greater risk.
Scroll to see how Africa’s fire story unfolded in 2024.
From January to March, fire detections formed a tight band across Guinea, Ghana, Nigeria, the Central African Republic, and South Sudan. This is the classic early dry‑season savanna belt: dry grass and crop residues burned for land management in hot, windy conditions. In other words, this is the “normal” part of Africa’s fire story — lots of fires, but mostly in ecosystems adapted to frequent, low‑intensity burning.
When we compare annual fire counts in this belt between 2023 and 2024, several of these countries edge upward instead of downward. Places like South Sudan, Nigeria, Guinea, and Sierra Leone all show more fires. The changes aren’t huge or dramatic, but this is just the start to show that what typically is just controlled low intensity fires may be something more.
Fire Radiative Power is a satellite estimate of how intense a fire is and a measure of how much energy it’s releasing. A country can have similar numbers of fires in two years, but if FRP is higher, those fires are burning hotter and doing more damage.
In the map, turning on Region FRP colors countries by their average fire intensity. You can also toggle Fire Dots off if you want to see the FRP map more clearly.
By mid‑year, the fire belt shifted south and piled up around the Congo Basin – the world’s second‑largest tropical forest. Historically, these wet forests were too humid to burn, keeping large fires confined to surrounding savannas and woodlands.
In 2024, that boundary starts to blur. Countries around the Basin show more fires than they did in 2023. This is happening in a region that is vitally important for slowing climate change: the Congo Basin is estimated to hold roughly 8% of the world’s forest‑based carbon in its trees and soils. When these forests burn, they don’t just lose trees. They also release stored carbon back into the atmosphere.
In Congo itself, fire counts jumped nearly 50% compared to 2023. This is a place that rarely burned in the past because of its rainforest climate. It was a moment of surprise and alarm, showing that Africa’s fire regime is no longer confined to its savannas, but spilling into ecosystems that were once fire‑resistant. Here is the key moment where Africa’s 2024 fire regime starts to look like an early warning sign of more unpredictable, and uncontrollable fires.
Between September and October, the fires migrated further south. Angola, Zambia, Mozambique, and South Africa lit up as the dry season reached them. This continues the seasonal cycle, but the consequences start to look slightly different.
Comparing 2023 and 2024 in this southern cluster, several countries north of South Africa and in its vicinity, see more fires in 2024 than in the year before.
South Africa’s 2024 fire season became one of the deadliest and most damaging on record, even without a huge spike in fire counts. The intensity and impact rose sharply with homes destroyed and families displaced. In other words, even if the fire count didn’t increase, the intensity and impact of those fires were demolishing.
At the end of the year, the fires migrate back toward the central African savanna belt as the next dry season begins. The map starts to resemble the early‑year pattern again, and the cycle continues, only with each year we get hotter, drier and more destructive fires.
Across all chapters, the 2024 Africa map still traces the familiar dry‑season fire belt. But looking country by country, and comparing 2023 to 2024, reveals something more subtle: hotspots of increasing fire activity. The Congo region anomaly put together with the South Africa fires shows how “routine burning” can turn into full‑blown wildfire crises.
It may be a slow‑moving change, but the signs are clear. Climate change is reshaping Africa’s fire regime, turning predictable burning into unpredictable emergencies.
Africa’s 2024 fires aren’t just a pattern on a satellite map – they are people breathing smoke, landscapes losing resilience, and a warning about where the climate is heading. The familiar dry‑season fire belt is still there, but this visualization shows how it’s starting to fray at the edges: wetter forests like the Congo region lighting up more often, and southern seasons growing deadlier even when fire counts don’t explode. By walking you through space and time with the map, charts, and story side by side, the project turns a cloud of orange dots into a clear warning that demands attention.
Watch the project video here: Project Video