Béka fire, 11 February 2026 Béka
The fire started on 11 February 2026 in Béka, Cameroon, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 1,664 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 540th largest in North since 2016 (of 1648 with a page). Number 133 in Cameroon in 2026, of 376.
The power measured by the satellite is low (10.5 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
- 1,664ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 5days
- 11 Feb 2026 – 15 Feb 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- communes
- Started on
- 11 Feb
- 2026
- Heat detections
- 33
- in a single hotspot: 11 MW
- Energy released
- 141MW
- 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.
This area had burned before
92% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,055 ha in 2016, 1,202 ha in 2017, 1,155 ha in 2018, 501 ha in 2020, 122 ha in 2021, 900 ha in 2022, 9 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,534 ha that had burned before.
- 1,202 ha Béka fire, February 2017 2,962 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,155 ha Béka fire, January 2018 1,441 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,055 ha Béka fire, February 2016 1,728 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 900 ha Béka fire, February 2022 1,148 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 501 ha Béka fire, January 2020 1,119 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 122 ha Béka fire, February 2021 1,183 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 9 ha Béka fire, February 2023 1,086 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
Béka where it started1,674 ha reached on 11 Feb1.0 %
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.
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 112 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 82: 5.5 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 · 33Every 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 11 February 2026 and 15 February 2026: 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 1,664 hectares (16.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Béka (1,674 ha, 1.0 %).
- 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.