How long did the Djougou fire last?

According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 16 February 2026 to 1 March 2026 (14 days). The perimeter dates it from 16 February 2026 to 25 February 2026.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 8,786 hectares (87.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 2 municipalities: Djougou (4,673 ha, 1.2 %); Tchaourou (4,172 ha, 0.6 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 37.7 °C, humidity dropped to 12 % and gusts hit 39 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 49, class Very high.

Where does this data come from?

From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Benin (geoBoundaries). It is not an official report.

BJ · Benin · 2026-02-16 → 2026-03-01

Djougou fire, February 2026 Djougou, Tchaourou

Out · last detection 1 Mar 2026, 13:38 UTC

The fire started on 16 February 2026 in Djougou, Benin, and satellites saw it burning for 14 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 8,786 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 3th largest in Donga since 2016 (of 55 with a page). Number 5 in Benin in 2026, of 99.

The power measured by the satellite is low (12.2 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Burnt area: 8,786ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 14days; 16 Feb 2026 – 1 Mar 2026
Municipalities hit: 2; communes
Started on: 16 Feb; 2026
Heat detections: 209; in a single hotspot: 12 MW
Danger at start: 48; Very high · FWI index
Energy released: 788MW; sum of detected power

Play back 1 Mar 2026

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 16 Feb1 Mar

How it evolved, day by day

16171819202122232425261

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

The weather it burned in

38°high

39km/h · peak gust

12%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

22% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,942 ha in 2017.

1,942 ha Tchaourou fire, January 2017 5,150 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire

What happened to each town

Djougou where it started

4,673 ha reached on 16 Feb

1.2 %
Tchaourou

4,172 ha reached on 16 Feb

0.6 %

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)
16 Feb	37.5 °C	14 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 48
17 Feb	35.2 °C	15 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 48
18 Feb	35.0 °C	12 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 48
19 Feb	35.8 °C	16 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 47
20 Feb	36.3 °C	15 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 47
21 Feb	36.5 °C	16 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 47
22 Feb	37.7 °C	18 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 47
23 Feb	37.4 °C	17 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 49
24 Feb	36.2 °C	15 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 49
25 Feb	36.4 °C	15 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 49
26 Feb	36.6 °C	19 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 49
27 Feb	36.4 °C	29 %	20 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
28 Feb	36.8 °C	27 %	21 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
1 Mar	36.9 °C	25 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
2 Mar after	36.0 °C	29 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
3 Mar after	36.4 °C	33 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
4 Mar after	36.8 °C	34 %	27 km/h	0.1 mm	Very high 38
5 Mar after	34.8 °C	40 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
6 Mar after	37.4 °C	30 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
7 Mar after	38.0 °C	30 %	22 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
8 Mar after	38.7 °C	28 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
9 Mar after	38.5 °C	29 %	25 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 38
10 Mar after	38.2 °C	31 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44
11 Mar after	36.7 °C	37 %	28 km/h	0.4 mm	Very high 39

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 9 Feb 2026

After · 8 Mar 2026

Before After

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 26 February 2026 the air beside the fire reached 148 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 108: 7.2 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak148 µg/m³

Days over the guideline18 days

PM10767 µg/m³

Optical depth1.52

WHO 15

1415161718192021222324252627281234

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 · 209Every 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 time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Benin ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Djougou fire last?: According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 16 February 2026 to 1 March 2026 (14 days). The perimeter dates it from 16 February 2026 to 25 February 2026.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 8,786 hectares (87.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 2 municipalities: Djougou (4,673 ha, 1.2 %); Tchaourou (4,172 ha, 0.6 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 37.7 °C, humidity dropped to 12 % and gusts hit 39 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 49, class Very high.
Where does this data come from?: From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Benin (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

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

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 (Public Domain). 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.

Where it burned