Contuboel fire, 24 February 2026 Contuboel
The fire started on 24 February 2026 in Contuboel, Guinea-Bissau, and satellites saw it burning for 20 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,289 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 6th largest in Bafatá since 2016 (of 73 with a page). Number 4 in Guinea-Bissau in 2026, of 75.
The power measured by the satellite is low (10.8 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 3,289ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 20days
- 24 Feb 2026 – 15 Mar 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- sectors
- Started on
- 24 Feb
- 2026
- Heat detections
- 72
- in a single hotspot: 11 MW
- Danger at start
- 47
- Very high · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 40MW
- detected power per day, on average
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.
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
No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.
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
-
Contuboel where it started3,311 ha reached on 24 Feb2.4 %
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.
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 24 Feb | 37.3 °C | 17 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 25 Feb | 38.2 °C | 17 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 26 Feb | 37.3 °C | 18 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 27 Feb | 35.3 °C | 21 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 28 Feb | 31.8 °C | 26 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 1 Mar | 33.6 °C | 20 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 2 Mar | 32.6 °C | 25 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 3 Mar | 35.4 °C | 19 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 4 Mar | 35.2 °C | 22 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 5 Mar | 37.0 °C | 19 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 6 Mar | 37.9 °C | 20 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 7 Mar | 38.1 °C | 23 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 8 Mar | 39.1 °C | 18 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 9 Mar | 40.5 °C | 17 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 10 Mar | 40.2 °C | 17 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 50 |
| 11 Mar | 39.4 °C | 16 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 12 Mar | 40.1 °C | 17 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 13 Mar | 39.3 °C | 16 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 50 |
| 14 Mar | 38.9 °C | 19 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 50 |
| 15 Mar | 39.4 °C | 19 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 50 |
| 16 Mar after | 38.2 °C | 21 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 50 |
| 17 Mar after | 37.1 °C | 25 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 18 Mar after | 36.4 °C | 30 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 19 Mar after | 36.7 °C | 30 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 20 Mar after | 36.9 °C | 29 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 21 Mar after | 36.7 °C | 32 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 22 Mar after | 37.2 °C | 32 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 23 Mar after | 34.0 °C | 30 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 24 Mar after | 36.5 °C | 29 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 25 Mar after | 35.8 °C | 31 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
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 28 February 2026 the air beside the fire reached 96 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 68: 4.6 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 · 72Every 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 Contuboel fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 24 February 2026 to 15 March 2026 (20 days). The perimeter dates it from 1 March 2026 to 12 March 2026.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 3,289 hectares (32.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Contuboel (3,311 ha, 2.4 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 40.5 °C, humidity dropped to 16 % and gusts hit 38 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 53, class Extreme.
- Where does this data come from?
- From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Guinea-Bissau (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; 2 polygons grouped in this page.
- Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 1 March 2026 to 12 March 2026. 72 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.
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 (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.