Béka fire, 25 February 2025 Béka
The fire started on 25 February 2025 in Béka, Cameroon, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,476 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 91th largest in North since 2016 (of 1648 with a page). Number 64 in Cameroon in 2025, of 396.
The power measured by the satellite is low (11.1 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.
- Burnt area
- 3,476ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 5days
- 25 Feb 2025 – 1 Mar 2025
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- communes
- Started on
- 25 Feb
- 2025
- Heat detections
- 75
- in a single hotspot: 11 MW
- Danger at start
- 52
- Extreme · FWI index
- Energy released
- 249MW
- 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 more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
95% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 771 ha in 2016, 2,470 ha in 2017, 1,503 ha in 2019, 1,727 ha in 2020, 2,822 ha in 2021, 1,273 ha in 2022, 1,446 ha in 2023, 1,729 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 3,311 ha that had burned before.
- 2,470 ha Béka fire, February 2017 3,825 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,727 ha Béka fire, February 2020 2,774 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,681 ha Béka fire, February 2024 2,246 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,550 ha Béka fire, March 2021 2,621 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,503 ha Béka fire, January 2019 1,855 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,446 ha Béka fire, February 2023 2,046 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,176 ha Béka fire, February 2022 2,158 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,157 ha Béka fire, February 2021 1,419 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
Béka where it started2,985 ha reached on 25 Feb1.8 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 25 Feb | 37.0 °C | 8 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 26 Feb | 34.7 °C | 13 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 27 Feb | 34.8 °C | 13 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 50 |
| 28 Feb | 35.9 °C | 8 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 1 Mar | 37.7 °C | 8 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 2 Mar after | 38.5 °C | 10 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 55 |
| 3 Mar after | 38.9 °C | 8 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 57 |
| 4 Mar after | 38.6 °C | 8 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 5 Mar after | 38.5 °C | 9 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 6 Mar after | 37.2 °C | 7 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 7 Mar after | 37.8 °C | 8 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 8 Mar after | 38.1 °C | 7 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 9 Mar after | 39.3 °C | 8 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 57 |
| 10 Mar after | 39.6 °C | 7 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 57 |
| 11 Mar after | 39.7 °C | 9 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 63 |
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 February 2025 the air beside the fire reached 150 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 114: 7.6 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 · 75Every 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 Béka fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 25 February 2025 and 1 March 2025: 5 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 3,476 hectares (34.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Béka (2,985 ha, 1.8 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 37.7 °C, humidity dropped to 8 % and gusts hit 32 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 52, class Extreme.
- Where does this data come from?
- From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Cameroon (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 ADM3 (Open Data Commons Open Database License 1.0). 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.