Arbinda fire, 29 October 2026 Déou, Arbinda
The fire started on 29 October 2026 in Arbinda, Burkina Faso, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,664 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 8th largest in Soum since 2016 (of 136 with a page). Number 18 in Burkina Faso in 2026, of 298.
Compare with…
Suggestions: Déou · 2023Déou · 2024Déou · 2024Déou · 2024
- Burnt area
- 6,664ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 4days
- 29 Oct 2026 – 1 Nov 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- communes
- Started on
- 29 Oct
- 2026
- Heat detections
- 90
- in a single hotspot: 52 MW
- Danger at start
- 40
- Very high · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 310MW
- 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 26 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
66% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,537 ha in 2023, 2,192 ha in 2024, 651 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 4,403 ha that had burned before.
- 2,435 ha Déou fire, November 2023 4,561 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 990 ha Déou fire, October 2024 1,409 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 727 ha Déou fire, November 2024 1,001 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 447 ha Déou fire, October 2024 4,242 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 226 ha Arbinda fire, October 2025 37,890 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 215 ha Déou fire, October 2025 8,265 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 130 ha Déou fire, October 2025 2,405 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 91 ha Arbinda fire, February 2023 1,295 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
-
5,859 ha reached on 30 Oct2.8 %
-
Arbinda where it started840 ha reached on 29 Oct0.3 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 29 Oct | 37.0 °C | 23 % | 25 km/h | 0.4 mm | Very high 40 |
| 30 Oct | 38.5 °C | 16 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 31 Oct | 38.5 °C | 15 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 1 Nov | 38.8 °C | 13 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 2 Nov after | 39.1 °C | 12 % | 18 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 3 Nov after | 39.6 °C | 15 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
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 28 October 2026 the air beside the fire reached 61 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 48: 3.2 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 · 90Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 8,265 haDéou10 October 2025 · 11 days · 11 km away
- 37,890 haArbinda26 October 2025 · 10 days · 14 km away
- 9,509 haKoutougouJanuary 2023 · 5 days · 16 km away
- 9,569 haArbinda26 October 2022 · 6 days · 17 km away
- 11,164 haDéou26 October 2026 · 4 days · 24 km away
- 51,111 haArbinda 19 October 2026 · 16 days · 25 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 29 October 2026 to 1 November 2026 (4 days). The perimeter dates it from 29 October 2026 to 31 October 2026.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 6,664 hectares (66.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Déou (5,859 ha, 2.8 %); Arbinda (840 ha, 0.3 %).
- Is the Arbinda fire still active?
- No fire detections since 1 Nov 2026, 01:24 UTC. A lack of detections is not an official extinction.
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 38.8 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 26 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 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 · 2 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 31 October 2026.
- Area: 3,720 → 6,664 ha.
- Page published (3,720 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.
- Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 29 October 2026 to 31 October 2026. 90 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.