How long did the Albadariah fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 7 January 2026 and 23 February 2026: 48 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 72,176 hectares (721.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 6 municipalities: Albadariah (32,838 ha, 46 %); Manfran (20,909 ha, 24 %); Sangardo (13,103 ha, 11 %); Tokounou (4,241 ha, 3.8 %); Douako (856 ha, 0.3 %); Gbangbadou (694 ha, 2.5 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 38.0 °C, humidity dropped to 4 % and gusts hit 39 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 57, class Extreme.

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.

GN · Guinea · 2026-01-07 → 2026-02-23

Albadariah fire, 7 January 2026 Albadariah, Manfran, Sangardo

Out · last detection 24 Feb 2026, 13:33 UTC

The fire started on 7 January 2026 in Albadariah, Guinea, and satellites saw it burning for 48 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 72,176 hectares from heat detections, spread across 6 municipalities.

This page is probably a fire complex, not a single fire. GWIS merges into one perimeter the fires that touch over weeks, which in large burning seasons can join dozens of separate fires. The total area is reliable; the origin and dates refer to the whole complex.

It is the largest fire in Faranah since 2016 (of 208 with a page). The largest in Guinea in 2026, of 269.

Burnt area: 72,176ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 48days; 7 Jan 2026 – 23 Feb 2026
Municipalities hit: 6; sub-prefectures
Started on: 7 Jan; 2026
Heat detections: 2,687; in a single hotspot: 111 MW
Danger at start: 5; Very low · FWI index
Energy released: 24.3GW; sum of detected power

Play back 24 Feb 2026

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 7 Jan23 Feb

How it evolved, day by day

8910111213141516171819202122242526272829303112356789101112131415161718192021222324

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

4%lowest humidity

It had gone 0 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.1 mm on 27 Feb.

This area had burned before

94% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 27,397 ha in 2016, 35,361 ha in 2017, 15,386 ha in 2018, 28,403 ha in 2019, 26,079 ha in 2020, 31,100 ha in 2021, 27,766 ha in 2022, 11,503 ha in 2023, 29,329 ha in 2024, 25,149 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 68,144 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

Albadariah where it started

32,838 ha reached on 8 Jan

46 %
Manfran

20,909 ha reached on 15 Jan

24 %
Sangardo

13,103 ha reached on 12 Jan

11 %
Tokounou

4,241 ha reached on 8 Jan

3.8 %
Douako

856 ha reached on 8 Jan

0.3 %
Gbangbadou

694 ha reached on 30 Jan

2.5 %

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.

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)
7 Jan	31.9 °C	36 %	32 km/h	2.5 mm	Very low 5
8 Jan	29.3 °C	35 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 14
9 Jan	32.5 °C	28 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 16
10 Jan	32.5 °C	25 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 18
11 Jan	34.2 °C	19 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	High 22
12 Jan	34.2 °C	21 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	High 22
13 Jan	33.4 °C	27 %	17 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 20
14 Jan	33.7 °C	25 %	17 km/h	0.0 mm	High 22
15 Jan	33.9 °C	25 %	22 km/h	0.0 mm	High 23
16 Jan	34.2 °C	23 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	High 25
17 Jan	34.6 °C	21 %	23 km/h	0.0 mm	High 25
18 Jan	34.1 °C	28 %	20 km/h	0.0 mm	High 25
19 Jan	34.7 °C	25 %	18 km/h	0.0 mm	High 25
20 Jan	32.3 °C	24 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	High 27
21 Jan	32.8 °C	22 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
22 Jan	32.3 °C	21 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
23 Jan	33.2 °C	20 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
24 Jan	33.8 °C	17 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31
25 Jan	33.0 °C	17 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
26 Jan	33.8 °C	18 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
27 Jan	34.9 °C	15 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
28 Jan	34.7 °C	13 %	22 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
29 Jan	34.9 °C	13 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
30 Jan	35.5 °C	15 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
31 Jan	35.7 °C	16 %	19 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
1 Feb	34.8 °C	27 %	23 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
2 Feb	35.8 °C	24 %	22 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
3 Feb	33.3 °C	32 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
4 Feb	31.4 °C	38 %	19 km/h	0.2 mm	High 26
5 Feb	34.8 °C	20 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
6 Feb	35.8 °C	15 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
7 Feb	36.7 °C	11 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44
8 Feb	36.4 °C	10 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44
9 Feb	36.1 °C	10 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 46
10 Feb	36.6 °C	12 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44
11 Feb	36.5 °C	17 %	22 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 49
12 Feb	37.3 °C	13 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 47
13 Feb	37.2 °C	11 %	25 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 47
14 Feb	35.9 °C	14 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 50
15 Feb	36.8 °C	17 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 46
16 Feb	36.4 °C	12 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 50
17 Feb	36.4 °C	9 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 49
18 Feb	36.3 °C	8 %	23 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 50
19 Feb	36.4 °C	4 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 53
20 Feb	37.8 °C	5 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 52
21 Feb	37.3 °C	11 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 54
22 Feb	38.0 °C	4 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 57
23 Feb	37.2 °C	7 %	25 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 53
24 Feb after	37.5 °C	5 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 55
25 Feb after	37.3 °C	12 %	22 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 53
26 Feb after	34.4 °C	28 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 43
27 Feb after	34.2 °C	36 %	30 km/h	2.1 mm	Moderate 21

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 31 Dec 2025

After · 2 Mar 2026

Before After

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 19 February 2026 the air beside the fire reached 168 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 104: 6.9 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak168 µg/m³

Days over the guideline52 days

PM10287 µg/m³

Optical depth0.97

WHO 15

56789101112131415161718192021222324252627282930311234567891011121314151617181920212223242526

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 · 2,687Every 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

All fires in Guinea ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Albadariah fire last?: GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 7 January 2026 and 23 February 2026: 48 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 72,176 hectares (721.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 6 municipalities: Albadariah (32,838 ha, 46 %); Manfran (20,909 ha, 24 %); Sangardo (13,103 ha, 11 %); Tokounou (4,241 ha, 3.8 %); Douako (856 ha, 0.3 %); Gbangbadou (694 ha, 2.5 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 38.0 °C, humidity dropped to 4 % and gusts hit 39 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 57, class Extreme.
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

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

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.

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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.

Where it burned