How long did the Bélabo fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 21 January 2025 and 10 February 2025: 21 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 2,863 hectares (28.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Bélabo (2,883 ha, 0.4 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 35.6 °C, humidity dropped to 18 % and gusts hit 28 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 40, class Very high.

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.

CM · Cameroon · 2025-01-21 → 2025-02-10

Bélabo fire, 21 January 2025 Bélabo

Out · last detection 10 Feb 2025, 11:51 UTC

The fire started on 21 January 2025 in Bélabo, Cameroon, and satellites saw it burning for 21 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,863 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 54th largest in East since 2016 (of 242 with a page). Number 78 in Cameroon in 2025, of 396.

Burnt area: 2,863ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 21days; 21 Jan 2025 – 10 Feb 2025
Municipalities hit: 1; communes
Started on: 21 Jan; 2025
Heat detections: 236; in a single hotspot: 43 MW
Danger at start: 24; High · FWI index
Energy released: 1.6GW; sum of detected power

Play back 10 Feb 2025

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 21 Jan10 Feb

How it evolved, day by day

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Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.

The weather it burned in

36°high

28km/h · peak gust

18%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

90% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 54 ha in 2019, 1,273 ha in 2021, 2,419 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,580 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

Bélabo where it started

2,883 ha reached on 17 Jan

0.4 %

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)
21 Jan	33.2 °C	32 %	24 km/h	1.1 mm	High 24
22 Jan	30.8 °C	46 %	25 km/h	0.0 mm	High 24
23 Jan	34.6 °C	22 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
24 Jan	33.5 °C	28 %	25 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
25 Jan	33.1 °C	22 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
26 Jan	32.7 °C	22 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
27 Jan	33.7 °C	20 %	21 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
28 Jan	33.0 °C	22 %	20 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
29 Jan	32.8 °C	22 %	20 km/h	0.0 mm	High 38
30 Jan	33.9 °C	20 %	21 km/h	0.0 mm	High 38
31 Jan	32.8 °C	19 %	23 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 38
1 Feb	32.9 °C	22 %	22 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
2 Feb	33.0 °C	26 %	20 km/h	0.0 mm	High 38
3 Feb	35.2 °C	20 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
4 Feb	35.1 °C	24 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
5 Feb	33.1 °C	36 %	23 km/h	0.2 mm	High 33
6 Feb	35.6 °C	18 %	23 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
7 Feb	33.6 °C	27 %	20 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
8 Feb	32.8 °C	35 %	23 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
9 Feb	34.4 °C	25 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
10 Feb	34.6 °C	29 %	20 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
11 Feb after	33.7 °C	22 %	20 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
12 Feb after	34.2 °C	16 %	22 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
13 Feb after	34.5 °C	17 %	18 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 43
14 Feb after	33.2 °C	22 %	20 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 43
15 Feb after	34.0 °C	21 %	21 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
16 Feb after	33.9 °C	17 %	18 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
17 Feb after	35.0 °C	17 %	20 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44
18 Feb after	35.3 °C	18 %	22 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 45
19 Feb after	32.3 °C	41 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
20 Feb after	33.4 °C	33 %	22 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32

Before and after, from space

Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.

↔

Before · 14 Jan 2025

After · 17 Feb 2025

Before After

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 · Copernicus

On 12 February 2025 the air beside the fire reached 140 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 107: 7.1 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak140 µg/m³

Days over the guideline26 days

PM10179 µg/m³

Optical depth1.32

WHO 15

1920212223242526272829303112345678910111213

Good Fair Moderate Poor Very poor Extremely poor

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 · 236Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.

⬇ Download CSV Times in UTC. Each detection is a 375 m pixel: a large fire yields hundreds per pass.

Date and time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Cameroon ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Bélabo fire last?: GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 21 January 2025 and 10 February 2025: 21 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 2,863 hectares (28.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Bélabo (2,883 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 35.6 °C, humidity dropped to 18 % and gusts hit 28 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 40, class Very high.
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

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

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.

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What really happened?

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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.

Where it burned