Douako fire, 6 February 2026 Douako
The fire started on 6 February 2026 in Douako, Guinea, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,141 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 323th largest in Kankan since 2016 (of 388 with a page). Number 231 in Guinea in 2026, of 269.
The power measured by the satellite is low (19.2 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
- 2,141ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 4days
- 6 Feb 2026 – 9 Feb 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- sub-prefectures
- Started on
- 6 Feb
- 2026
- Heat detections
- 38
- in a single hotspot: 19 MW
- Energy released
- 348MW
- 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
79% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,244 ha in 2016, 463 ha in 2020, 832 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,702 ha that had burned before.
What happened to each town
-
Douako where it started2,156 ha reached on 7 Feb0.8 %
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 10 February 2026 the air beside the fire reached 72 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 50: 3.3 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 · 38Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 9,294 haDouako8 February 2019 · 8 days · 23 km away
- 9,068 haDouako6 February 2019 · 10 days · 32 km away
- 9,259 haDouako31 January 2017 · 10 days · 36 km away
- 9,121 haBanféléFebruary 2026 · 20 days · 36 km away
- 13,279 haTokounou25 January 2020 · 9 days · 37 km away
- 15,872 haAlbadariah24 January 2016 · 13 days · 40 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Douako fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 6 February 2026 and 9 February 2026: 4 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 2,141 hectares (21.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Douako (2,156 ha, 0.8 %).
- Where does this data come from?
- From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Guinea (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 ADM3 (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.