Amou fire, January 2026 Amou, Akébou, Wawa
The fire started on 12 January 2026 in Amou, Togo, and satellites saw it burning for 25 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 38,183 hectares from heat detections, spread across 3 municipalities.
It is the largest fire in Plateaux since 2016 (of 50 with a page). The largest in Togo in 2026, of 54.
- Burnt area
- 38,183ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 25days
- 12 Jan 2026 – 5 Feb 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 3
- prefectures
- Started on
- 12 Jan
- 2026
- Heat detections
- 960
- in a single hotspot: 118 MW
- Danger at start
- 28
- High · FWI index
- Energy released
- 5.9GW
- sum of detected power
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone 34 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.7 mm on 3 Feb.
This area had burned before
31% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 6,047 ha in 2016, 1,250 ha in 2019, 1,116 ha in 2020, 169 ha in 2021, 729 ha in 2022, 1,559 ha in 2024, 3,145 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 11,948 ha that had burned before.
- 2,481 ha Wawa fire, January 2016 6,571 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,225 ha Amou fire, January 2016 4,361 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,132 ha Amou fire, January 2025 2,378 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,057 ha Akébou fire, January 2020 1,175 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,021 ha Amou fire, February 2019 1,465 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,013 ha Amou fire, January 2025 1,150 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 981 ha Amou fire, January 2024 1,031 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 748 ha Amou fire, December 2016 1,158 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
Amou where it started30,362 ha reached on 12 Jan17 %
-
4,501 ha reached on 12 Jan4.0 %
-
3,577 ha reached on 13 Jan2.9 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 19 Jan | 34.2 °C | 37 % | 19 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 20 Jan | 33.4 °C | 33 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 21 Jan | 32.6 °C | 26 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 22 Jan | 32.4 °C | 33 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 23 Jan | 33.5 °C | 20 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 24 Jan | 34.0 °C | 18 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 25 Jan | 34.2 °C | 12 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 26 Jan | 34.2 °C | 9 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 27 Jan | 34.0 °C | 24 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 28 Jan | 34.0 °C | 35 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 29 Jan | 34.4 °C | 35 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 30 Jan | 34.8 °C | 31 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 31 Jan | 35.3 °C | 31 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 1 Feb | 33.5 °C | 45 % | 25 km/h | 0.9 mm | Moderate 19 |
| 2 Feb | 34.5 °C | 39 % | 26 km/h | 0.5 mm | High 25 |
| 3 Feb | 34.6 °C | 35 % | 24 km/h | 1.7 mm | Moderate 17 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
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 · CopernicusOn 27 January 2026 the air beside the fire reached 130 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 96: 6.4 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
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 · 960Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Amou fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 12 January 2026 to 5 February 2026 (25 days). The perimeter dates it from 19 January 2026 to 31 January 2026.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 38,183 hectares (381.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 3 municipalities: Amou (30,362 ha, 17 %); Akébou (4,501 ha, 4.0 %); Wawa (3,577 ha, 2.9 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 35.3 °C, humidity dropped to 9 % and gusts hit 35 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 44, class Very high.
- Where does this data come from?
- From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Togo (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
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
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-ShareAlike 2.0). 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.