Darak fire, 26 June 2026 Darak
The fire started on 26 June 2026 in Darak, Cameroon, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,248 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 23th largest in Far North since 2016 (of 338 with a page). Number 39 in Cameroon in 2026, of 377.
Compare with…
Suggestions: Darak · 2020Darak · 2016Darak · 2022Darak · 2016
- Burnt area
- 3,248ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 2days
- 26 Jun 2026 – 27 Jun 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- communes
- Started on
- 26 Jun
- 2026
- Heat detections
- 106
- in a single hotspot: 121 MW
- Danger at start
- 51
- Extreme · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 508MW
- 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
88% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,613 ha in 2016, 916 ha in 2017, 67 ha in 2018, 1,361 ha in 2019, 2,488 ha in 2020, 8 ha in 2021, 1,284 ha in 2022, 194 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,867 ha that had burned before.
- 2,488 ha Darak fire, June 2020 4,480 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,574 ha Darak fire, April 2016 3,405 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,284 ha Darak fire, May 2022 4,924 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,039 ha Darak fire, June 2016 1,037 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 916 ha Darak fire, July 2017 2,311 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 851 ha Darak fire, June 2019 2,460 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 510 ha Darak fire, March 2019 1,173 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 194 ha Darak fire, May 2024 2,908 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
-
Darak where it started3,271 ha reached on 26 Jun1.7 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 26 Jun | 36.4 °C | 33 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 27 Jun | 36.9 °C | 36 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 28 Jun after | 37.0 °C | 31 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 29 Jun after | 37.1 °C | 37 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 30 Jun after | 35.1 °C | 44 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 50 |
| 1 Jul after | 37.4 °C | 39 % | 32 km/h | 0.8 mm | High 36 |
| 2 Jul after | 37.6 °C | 35 % | 32 km/h | 0.5 mm | Very high 39 |
| 3 Jul after | 38.2 °C | 36 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 4 Jul after | 38.2 °C | 36 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 5 Jul after | 38.1 °C | 36 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 6 Jul after | 38.9 °C | 35 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 7 Jul after | 35.8 °C | 46 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
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 26 June 2026 the air beside the fire reached 46 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 30: 2.0 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 · 106Every 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 Darak fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 26 June 2026 and 27 June 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 3,248 hectares (32.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Darak (3,271 ha, 1.7 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 36.9 °C, humidity dropped to 33 % and gusts hit 39 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 51, class Extreme.
- 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
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. 106 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 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.