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Dababa fire, 20 October 2025 Dababa, Fitri

Out · last detection 26 Oct 2025, 12:58 UTC

The fire started on 20 October 2025 in Dababa, Chad, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 7,564 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the largest fire in Hadjer-Lamis since 2016 (of 13 with a page). Number 24 in Chad in 2025, of 274.

Burnt area
7,564ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
7days
20 Oct 2025 – 26 Oct 2025
Municipalities hit
2
departments
Started on
20 Oct
2025
Heat detections
183
in a single hotspot: 91 MW
Danger at start
43
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
2.5GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

26 Oct 2025
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 20 Oct26 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

202122242526

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

The weather it burned in

41°high
33km/h · peak gust
8%lowest humidity

It had gone 24 days 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.

What happened to each town

  1. Dababa where it started
    7,584 ha reached on 20 Oct
    0.5 %
  2. Fitri
    43 ha reached on 24 Oct
    0.0 %

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)
20 Oct 39.6 °C 10 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
21 Oct 40.3 °C 17 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
22 Oct 40.6 °C 13 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
23 Oct 40.7 °C 9 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
24 Oct 41.4 °C 8 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
25 Oct 41.1 °C 11 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
26 Oct 40.0 °C 14 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
27 Oct after 39.8 °C 9 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
28 Oct after 39.9 °C 10 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
29 Oct after 39.9 °C 9 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
30 Oct after 39.6 °C 5 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
31 Oct after 39.5 °C 9 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
1 Nov after 39.3 °C 8 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
2 Nov after 39.2 °C 8 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
3 Nov after 38.9 °C 10 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
4 Nov after 40.1 °C 10 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
5 Nov after 40.3 °C 11 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 13 Oct 2025
After · 2 Nov 2025

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 25 October 2025 the air beside the fire reached 37 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 26: 1.8 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak37 µg/m³
Days over the guideline9 days
PM10157 µg/m³
Optical depth0.49
181920212223242526272829
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 · 183Every 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 timeSatelliteFRP (MW)LatLon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Chad ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Dababa fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 20 October 2025 and 26 October 2025: 7 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 7,564 hectares (75.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Dababa (7,584 ha, 0.5 %); Fitri (43 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 41.4 °C, humidity dropped to 8 % and gusts hit 33 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 55, class 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

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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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.