Benakuma fire, January 2024 Benakuma
The fire started on 18 January 2024 in Benakuma, Cameroon, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 1,195 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 84th largest in North-West since 2016 (of 122 with a page). Number 124 in Cameroon in 2024, of 195.
The power measured by the satellite is low (12.8 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
- 1,195ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 4days
- 18 Jan 2024 – 21 Jan 2024
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- communes
- Started on
- 18 Jan
- 2024
- Heat detections
- 39
- in a single hotspot: 13 MW
- Energy released
- 116MW
- 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
27% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 327 ha in 2019.
What happened to each town
-
Benakuma where it started1,203 ha reached on 15 Jan1.2 %
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.
Detections table · 39Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 4,170 haBenakumaMarch 2021 · 9 days · 10 km away
- 5,598 haBenakuma24 February 2026 · 15 days · 12 km away
- 3,878 haBenakuma26 February 2017 · 8 days · 15 km away
- 2,646 haAkwaya18 February 2020 · 8 days · 22 km away
- 2,929 haAkwayaMarch 2021 · 6 days · 24 km away
- 4,491 haAkwaya28 February 2017 · 7 days · 25 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Benakuma fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 18 January 2024 and 21 January 2024: 4 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 1,195 hectares (12.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Benakuma (1,203 ha, 1.2 %).
- 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.