Banfélé fire, February 2026 Banfélé, Beindou
The fire started on 6 February 2026 in Banfélé, Guinea, and satellites saw it burning for 20 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 9,121 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 13th largest in Kankan since 2016 (of 388 with a page). Number 9 in Guinea in 2026, of 269.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 9,121ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 20days
- 6 Feb 2026 – 25 Feb 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- sub-prefectures
- Started on
- 6 Feb
- 2026
- Heat detections
- 199
- in a single hotspot: 89 MW
- Danger at start
- 44
- Very high · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 123MW
- 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 32 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
87% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,038 ha in 2016, 470 ha in 2017, 2,663 ha in 2019, 3,058 ha in 2020, 2,385 ha in 2021, 2,707 ha in 2022, 4,687 ha in 2023, 1,312 ha in 2024, 902 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 7,959 ha that had burned before.
- 4,575 ha Banfélé fire, February 2023 7,626 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,924 ha Banfélé fire, February 2020 2,515 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,794 ha Banfélé fire, March 2019 9,063 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,331 ha Banfélé fire, February 2022 2,003 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,312 ha Banfélé fire, February 2024 2,074 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 652 ha Banfélé fire, March 2021 2,350 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2 ha Banfélé fire, March 2021 3,609 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
-
Banfélé where it started8,874 ha reached on 6 Feb4.2 %
-
306 ha reached on 6 Feb0.2 %
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.
People and buildings inside the perimeter
GHSL 2025Inside the perimeter there were about 1.9 hectares of built-up land and about 850 residents (GHSL 2025, satellite-based estimate).
This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned. The GHSL 2025 epoch is a projection made from 2020 and earlier data.
Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 6 Feb | 35.8 °C | 15 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 7 Feb | 36.8 °C | 10 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 8 Feb | 36.7 °C | 10 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 9 Feb | 35.6 °C | 11 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 10 Feb | 36.3 °C | 12 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 11 Feb | 36.7 °C | 15 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 12 Feb | 37.6 °C | 7 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 13 Feb | 38.1 °C | 5 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 57 |
| 14 Feb | 37.1 °C | 9 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 62 |
| 15 Feb | 37.7 °C | 10 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 58 |
| 16 Feb | 36.4 °C | 10 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 63 |
| 17 Feb | 36.5 °C | 8 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 57 |
| 18 Feb | 36.1 °C | 6 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 55 |
| 19 Feb | 36.6 °C | 3 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 55 |
| 20 Feb | 37.6 °C | 6 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 57 |
| 21 Feb | 37.7 °C | 6 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 59 |
| 22 Feb | 37.7 °C | 4 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 58 |
| 23 Feb | 37.4 °C | 5 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 55 |
| 24 Feb | 37.0 °C | 4 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 56 |
| 25 Feb | 37.6 °C | 9 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 57 |
| 26 Feb after | 36.5 °C | 20 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 27 Feb after | 36.6 °C | 20 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 56 |
| 28 Feb after | 36.2 °C | 16 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 1 Mar after | 34.4 °C | 11 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 2 Mar after | 32.0 °C | 23 % | 28 km/h | 0.1 mm | Very high 40 |
| 3 Mar after | 37.2 °C | 20 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 4 Mar after | 37.1 °C | 18 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 5 Mar after | 38.3 °C | 15 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 50 |
| 6 Mar after | 37.9 °C | 22 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 7 Mar after | 36.8 °C | 25 % | 26 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 17 February 2026 the air beside the fire reached 80 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 63: 4.2 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 · 199Every 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 Banfélé fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 6 February 2026 and 25 February 2026: 20 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 9,121 hectares (91.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Banfélé (8,874 ha, 4.2 %); Beindou (306 ha, 0.2 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 38.1 °C, humidity dropped to 3 % and gusts hit 42 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 63, 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
History of this page Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
No changes since 24 October 2026.
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; 3 polygons grouped in this page.
- Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 199 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
- We have not matched this page with any official record.
- Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
- Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2025, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.
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.