Gamamundo fire, March 2026 Gamamundo
The fire started on 11 March 2026 in Gamamundo, Guinea-Bissau, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 1,094 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 60th largest in Bafatá since 2016 (of 72 with a page). Number 56 in Guinea-Bissau in 2026, of 75.
We have the GWIS perimeter for this fire, but not yet its hotspots: NASA publishes the yearly hotspot archive only once the year closes. The page picks them up automatically when they are available.
- Burnt area
- 1,094ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 3days
- 11 Mar 2026 – 13 Mar 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- sectors
- Started on
- 11 Mar
- 2026
Where it burned
This area had burned before
49% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 75 ha in 2019, 541 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 541 ha that had burned before.
What happened to each town
-
Gamamundo where it started1,101 ha1.0 %
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 11 March 2026 the air beside the fire reached 82 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 52: 3.5 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)
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Gamamundo fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 11 March 2026 and 13 March 2026: 3 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 1,094 hectares (10.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Gamamundo (1,101 ha, 1.0 %).
- Where does this data come from?
- From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Guinea-Bissau (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 ADM2 (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.