Biltine fire, 14 January 2026 Biltine
The fire started on 14 January 2026 in Biltine, Chad, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,747 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 20th largest in Wadi Fira since 2016 (of 27 with a page). Number 96 in Chad in 2026, of 173.
Compare with…
We have the GWIS perimeter for this fire, but not yet its hotspots: NASA publishes the yearly hotspot archive only once the year closes. The page picks them up automatically when they are available.
- Burnt area
- 2,747ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 2days
- 14 Jan 2026 – 15 Jan 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- departments
- Started on
- 14 Jan
- 2026
- Danger at start
- 73
- Very extreme · FWI index
Where it burned
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
36% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 63 ha in 2016, 341 ha in 2018, 794 ha in 2020. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 997 ha that had burned before.
- 625 ha Biltine fire, December 2020 4,431 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 341 ha Biltine fire, November 2018 4,309 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 169 ha Biltine fire, October 2020 5,693 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
-
Biltine where it started2,760 ha0.1 %
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 was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 14 Jan | 32.2 °C | 10 % | 47 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 73 |
| 15 Jan | 32.8 °C | 7 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 67 |
| 16 Jan after | 33.6 °C | 7 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 67 |
| 17 Jan after | 33.8 °C | 7 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 57 |
| 18 Jan after | 34.9 °C | 7 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 61 |
| 19 Jan after | 36.0 °C | 6 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 60 |
| 20 Jan after | 36.2 °C | 6 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 58 |
| 21 Jan after | 38.0 °C | 6 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 57 |
| 22 Jan after | 37.5 °C | 6 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 61 |
| 23 Jan after | 36.9 °C | 8 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 66 |
| 24 Jan after | 38.3 °C | 7 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 62 |
| 25 Jan after | 38.8 °C | 9 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 60 |
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 13 January 2026 the air beside the fire reached 138 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 96: 6.4 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)
Other fires nearby
- 4,431 haBiltineDecember 2020 · 2 days · 5 km away
- 4,550 haBiltine4 October 2025 · 2 days · 9 km away
- 4,309 haBiltineNovember 2018 · 1 day · 10 km away
- 5,693 haBiltine24 October 2020 · 2 days · 14 km away
- 5,479 haBiltine23 October 2020 · 1 day · 15 km away
- 5,520 haBiltine4 October 2025 · 2 days · 28 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Biltine fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 14 January 2026 and 15 January 2026: 2 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 2,747 hectares (27.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Biltine (2,760 ha, 0.1 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 32.8 °C, humidity dropped to 7 % and gusts hit 47 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 73, class Very extreme.
- Where does this data come from?
- From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Chad (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.
- Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. No 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 ADM2 (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.