Firawa fire, February 2026 Firawa, Manfran, Soromaya
The fire started on 7 February 2026 in Firawa, Guinea, and satellites saw it burning for 19 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 18,717 hectares from heat detections, spread across 3 municipalities.
It is the 8th largest in Faranah since 2016 (of 208 with a page). Number 2 in Guinea in 2026, of 268.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 18,717ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 19days
- 7 Feb 2026 – 25 Feb 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 3
- sub-prefectures
- Started on
- 7 Feb
- 2026
- Heat detections
- 486
- in a single hotspot: 75 MW
- Danger at start
- 41
- Very high · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 205MW
- 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 31 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 9.7 mm on 27 Feb.
This area had burned before
99% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 8,747 ha in 2016, 8,955 ha in 2017, 6,093 ha in 2018, 7,673 ha in 2019, 9,876 ha in 2020, 8,249 ha in 2021, 9,553 ha in 2022, 3,290 ha in 2023, 6,061 ha in 2024, 5,849 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 18,478 ha that had burned before.
- 8,955 ha Manfran fire, January 2017 70,029 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 8,747 ha Firawa fire, January 2016 25,026 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 6,602 ha Manfran fire, January 2019 26,689 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 5,593 ha Manfran fire, January 2022 40,177 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 5,305 ha Firawa fire, January 2020 11,561 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 5,190 ha Firawa fire, January 2018 6,245 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 5,119 ha Firawa fire, January 2025 5,639 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,837 ha Firawa fire, February 2021 3,234 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
-
Firawa where it started10,231 ha reached on 7 Feb28 %
-
7,745 ha reached on 7 Feb8.9 %
-
858 ha reached on 7 Feb0.5 %
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 were about 8.8 hectares of built-up land and about 2,500 residents (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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 7 Feb | 36.0 °C | 13 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 8 Feb | 35.9 °C | 16 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 9 Feb | 35.5 °C | 13 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 10 Feb | 35.6 °C | 17 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 11 Feb | 35.5 °C | 24 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 12 Feb | 36.5 °C | 20 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 13 Feb | 35.9 °C | 19 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 14 Feb | 33.9 °C | 23 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 15 Feb | 35.7 °C | 23 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 16 Feb | 35.3 °C | 19 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 17 Feb | 35.6 °C | 11 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 18 Feb | 35.7 °C | 15 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 19 Feb | 35.5 °C | 10 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 20 Feb | 37.2 °C | 10 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 21 Feb | 36.7 °C | 15 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 22 Feb | 37.4 °C | 7 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 23 Feb | 36.6 °C | 11 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 24 Feb | 37.2 °C | 10 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 25 Feb | 36.7 °C | 16 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 50 |
| 26 Feb after | 33.1 °C | 34 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 27 Feb after | 32.8 °C | 43 % | 27 km/h | 9.7 mm | Low 6 |
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 19 February 2026 the air beside the fire reached 110 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 84: 5.6 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 · 486Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 26,689 haManfranJanuary 2019 · 20 days · 3 km away
- 40,177 haManfranJanuary 2022 · 35 days · 13 km away
- 25,026 haFirawaJanuary 2016 · 22 days · 13 km away
- 26,206 haManfran17 January 2021 · 18 days · 22 km away
- 19,542 haManfran24 January 2020 · 23 days · 23 km away
- 16,530 haAlbadariahFebruary 2019 · 13 days · 38 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Firawa fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 7 February 2026 to 25 February 2026 (19 days). The perimeter dates it from 14 February 2026 to 25 February 2026.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 18,717 hectares (187.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 3 municipalities: Firawa (10,231 ha, 28 %); Manfran (7,745 ha, 8.9 %); Soromaya (858 ha, 0.5 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 37.4 °C, humidity dropped to 7 % and gusts hit 34 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 52, class Extreme.
- 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
History of this page · 1 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
- Start date: 14 February 2026 → 7 February 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 adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 14 February 2026 to 25 February 2026. 486 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 (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.