Furu-Awa fire, November 2019 Furu-Awa, Misaje
The fire started on 21 November 2019 in Furu-Awa, Cameroon, and satellites saw it burning for 27 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 9,376 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 2th largest in North-West since 2016 (of 122 with a page). Number 3 in Cameroon in 2019, of 195.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 9,376ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 27days
- 21 Nov 2019 – 17 Dec 2019
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- communes
- Started on
- 21 Nov
- 2019
- Heat detections
- 467
- in a single hotspot: 42 MW
- Danger at start
- 7
- Low · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 153MW
- 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 6 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
51% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 3,097 ha in 2016, 2,596 ha in 2017. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 4,783 ha that had burned before.
- 1,117 ha Furu-Awa fire, December 2016 1,766 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,022 ha Furu-Awa fire, December 2016 1,374 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 769 ha Misaje fire, December 2017 1,105 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 758 ha Furu-Awa fire, November 2017 1,362 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 574 ha Furu-Awa fire, December 2017 1,732 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 495 ha Furu-Awa fire, November 2017 1,573 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 468 ha Furu-Awa fire, November 2016 1,085 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 458 ha Furu-Awa fire, November 2016 1,000 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
-
Furu-Awa where it started8,367 ha reached on 21 Nov7.0 %
-
1,070 ha reached on 24 Nov1.3 %
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 2020Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2020, 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.
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 27 Nov | 29.0 °C | 42 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 7 |
| 28 Nov | 28.7 °C | 39 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 8 |
| 29 Nov | 28.4 °C | 30 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 10 |
| 30 Nov | 28.5 °C | 32 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 10 |
| 1 Dec | 27.7 °C | 40 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 11 |
| 2 Dec | 28.3 °C | 29 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 12 |
| 3 Dec | 28.0 °C | 28 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 12 |
| 4 Dec | 28.2 °C | 29 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 13 |
| 5 Dec | 28.2 °C | 26 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 14 |
| 6 Dec | 28.7 °C | 35 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 14 |
| 7 Dec | 28.5 °C | 29 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 14 |
| 8 Dec | 27.7 °C | 24 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 15 |
| 9 Dec | 28.2 °C | 24 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 15 |
| 10 Dec | 28.7 °C | 26 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 16 |
| 11 Dec | 27.9 °C | 24 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 17 |
| 12 Dec | 27.8 °C | 23 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 18 |
| 13 Dec | 28.0 °C | 28 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 18 |
| 14 Dec | 27.1 °C | 25 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 18 |
| 15 Dec | 28.3 °C | 26 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 19 |
| 16 Dec | 29.8 °C | 25 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 20 |
| 17 Dec | 29.0 °C | 27 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 21 |
| 18 Dec after | 28.2 °C | 30 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 20 |
| 19 Dec after | 28.7 °C | 30 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 21 |
| 20 Dec after | 29.0 °C | 29 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 21 |
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.
Detections table · 467Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 4,375 haFuru-Awa17 November 2022 · 20 days · 2 km away
- 4,731 haFuru-Awa18 November 2025 · 34 days · 5 km away
- 15,994 haFuru-Awa13 November 2025 · 45 days · 15 km away
- 14,296 haKurmi10 February 2026 · 35 days · 30 km away
- 8,262 haKurmiJanuary 2025 · 27 days · 39 km away
- 5,917 haKurmiFebruary 2024 · 26 days · 40 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Furu-Awa fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 21 November 2019 to 17 December 2019 (27 days). The perimeter dates it from 27 November 2019 to 10 December 2019.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 9,376 hectares (93.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Furu-Awa (8,367 ha, 7.0 %); Misaje (1,070 ha, 1.3 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 29.0 °C, humidity dropped to 24 % and gusts hit 35 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 16, class Moderate.
- 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 · 2 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
- Last day with fire: 10 December 2019 → 17 December 2019.
- Start date: 27 November 2019 → 21 November 2019.
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; 2 polygons grouped in this page.
- Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 27 November 2019 to 10 December 2019. 467 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 2020, 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.