Arbinda fire, 24 October 2026 Pensa, Arbinda, Bouroum
The fire started on 24 October 2026 in Arbinda, Burkina Faso, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,508 hectares from heat detections, spread across 3 municipalities.
It is the 25th largest in Soum since 2016 (of 136 with a page). Number 33 in Burkina Faso in 2026, of 214.
Compare with…
Suggestions: Pensa · 2022Pensa · 2021Arbinda · 2021Arbinda · 2023
Is it still active?
Satellites detected fire on 27 Oct 2026, 02:02 UTC. Everything suggests it is still burning. 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.
- Burnt area
- 3,508ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 4days
- 24 Oct 2026 – 27 Oct 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 3
- communes
- Started on
- 24 Oct
- 2026
- Heat detections
- 36
- in a single hotspot: 39 MW
- Danger at start
- 37
- High · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 117MW
- detected power per day, on average
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 21 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
30% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 440 ha in 2021, 871 ha in 2022, 10 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,056 ha that had burned before.
- 871 ha Pensa fire, November 2022 2,899 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 428 ha Pensa fire, December 2021 1,132 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 12 ha Arbinda fire, October 2021 1,422 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 10 ha Arbinda fire, November 2023 2,084 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
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
-
2,178 ha reached on 25 Oct2.4 %
-
Arbinda where it started1,262 ha reached on 24 Oct0.4 %
-
87 ha reached on 26 Oct0.1 %
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.
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) · forecast models, provisional until the ERA5 reanalysis arrives
| Day | High | Min. humidity | Peak gust | Rain | Danger (FWI) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 24 Oct | 38.2 °C | 14 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 25 Oct | 38.2 °C | 14 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 26 Oct | 36.8 °C | 16 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 27 Oct | 36.5 °C | 19 % | 19 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
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 24 October 2026 the air beside the fire reached 70 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 58: 3.8 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 · 36Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 10,056 haArbinda28 January 2022 · 5 days · 18 km away
- 8,487 haBarsalogho10 November 2021 · 7 days · 24 km away
- 8,238 haBouroumJanuary 2024 · 5 days · 31 km away
- 6,455 haGorgadji 17 October 2026 · 11 days · 31 km away
- 5,645 haArbinda15 January 2026 · 4 days · 32 km away
- 9,191 haGorom-Gorom18 November 2024 · 4 days · 39 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Arbinda fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 24 October 2026 to 27 October 2026 (4 days). The perimeter dates it from 24 October 2026 to 26 October 2026.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 3,508 hectares (35.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 3 municipalities: Pensa (2,178 ha, 2.4 %); Arbinda (1,262 ha, 0.4 %); Bouroum (87 ha, 0.1 %).
- Is the Arbinda fire still active?
- Yes: satellites detected fire on 27 Oct 2026, 02:02 UTC. Check the emergency service for the official status.
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 38.2 °C, humidity dropped to 14 % and gusts hit 29 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 Burkina Faso (OCHA COD-AB). 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
History of this page · 1 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 26 October 2026.
- Page published (1,953 ha).
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 24 October 2026 to 26 October 2026. 36 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
- We have not matched this page with any official record.
- Weather: ECMWF IFS model, provisional until the ERA5 reanalysis arrives.
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 OCHA COD-AB (Institut Geographique Burkina (IGB)) (Creative Commons Attribution for Intergovernmental Organisations (CC BY-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.