Biltine fire, May 2026 Biltine
The fire started on 6 May 2026 in Biltine, Chad, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,587 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 21th largest in Wadi Fira since 2016 (of 27 with a page). Number 95 in Chad in 2026, of 169.
- Burnt area
- 2,587ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 1day
- 6 May 2026 – 6 May 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- departments
- Started on
- 6 May
- 2026
- Heat detections
- 21
- in a single hotspot: 154 MW
- Energy released
- 889MW
- 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
23% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 303 ha in 2017, 278 ha in 2020, 4 ha in 2025.
What happened to each town
-
Biltine where it started2,603 ha reached on 6 May0.1 %
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 5 May 2026 the air beside the fire reached 126 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 76: 5.0 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 · 21Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 10,025 haBiltine8 November 2025 · 2 days · 10 km away
- 14,646 haBiltine8 November 2025 · 3 days · 20 km away
- 9,220 haBatha Est24 April 2019 · 2 days · 24 km away
- 9,215 haBatha Est22 January 2026 · 2 days · 34 km away
- 6,850 haBatha Est31 December 2025 · 2 days · 36 km away
- 6,726 haBiltineFebruary 2026 · 3 days · 36 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Biltine fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 6 May 2026 and 6 May 2026: 1 day 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 2,587 hectares (25.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Biltine (2,603 ha, 0.1 %).
- 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
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 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.