How long did the Karala fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 23 January 2026 and 1 February 2026: 10 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 9,760 hectares (97.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 3 municipalities: Karala (7,460 ha, 4.5 %); Samana (2,302 ha, 2.5 %); Linko (60 ha, 0.0 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 35.5 °C, humidity dropped to 14 % and gusts hit 33 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 35, class High.

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.

GN · Guinea · 2026-01-23 → 2026-02-01

Karala fire, 23 January 2026 Karala, Samana, Linko

Out · last detection 1 Feb 2026, 14:04 UTC

The fire started on 23 January 2026 in Karala, Guinea, and satellites saw it burning for 10 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 9,760 hectares from heat detections, spread across 3 municipalities.

It is the 2th largest in Nzérékoré since 2016 (of 241 with a page). Number 7 in Guinea in 2026, of 269.

Burnt area: 9,760ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 10days; 23 Jan 2026 – 1 Feb 2026
Municipalities hit: 3; sub-prefectures
Started on: 23 Jan; 2026
Heat detections: 221; in a single hotspot: 141 MW
Danger at start: 30; High · FWI index
Energy released: 1.7GW; sum of detected power

Play back 1 Feb 2026

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 23 Jan1 Feb

How it evolved, day by day

2324252627282930311

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

The weather it burned in

36°high

33km/h · peak gust

14%lowest humidity

It had gone 16 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

57% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 526 ha in 2016, 780 ha in 2017, 643 ha in 2018, 1,738 ha in 2019, 361 ha in 2020, 2,436 ha in 2021, 1,158 ha in 2023, 279 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 5,542 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

Karala where it started

7,460 ha reached on 16 Jan

4.5 %
Samana

2,302 ha reached on 16 Jan

2.5 %
Linko

60 ha

0.0 %

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.

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)
23 Jan	31.8 °C	20 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
24 Jan	32.7 °C	20 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
25 Jan	32.0 °C	15 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
26 Jan	32.7 °C	18 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
27 Jan	33.9 °C	15 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
28 Jan	33.8 °C	14 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
29 Jan	34.4 °C	14 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
30 Jan	34.7 °C	15 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
31 Jan	35.5 °C	15 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
1 Feb	34.4 °C	27 %	25 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
2 Feb after	34.9 °C	25 %	23 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
3 Feb after	27.5 °C	60 %	26 km/h	0.5 mm	Moderate 19
4 Feb after	29.9 °C	35 %	20 km/h	0.6 mm	High 23
5 Feb after	33.9 °C	22 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
6 Feb after	35.3 °C	17 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
7 Feb after	35.4 °C	13 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
8 Feb after	36.2 °C	12 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
9 Feb after	34.5 °C	15 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
10 Feb after	34.5 °C	18 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
11 Feb after	34.9 °C	20 %	22 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 16 Jan 2026

After · 8 Feb 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 2 February 2026 the air beside the fire reached 80 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 54: 3.6 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak80 µg/m³

Days over the guideline15 days

PM10215 µg/m³

Optical depth0.65

WHO 15

21222324252627282930311234

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 · 221Every 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 Guinea ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Karala fire last?: GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 23 January 2026 and 1 February 2026: 10 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 9,760 hectares (97.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 3 municipalities: Karala (7,460 ha, 4.5 %); Samana (2,302 ha, 2.5 %); Linko (60 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 35.5 °C, humidity dropped to 14 % and gusts hit 33 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 35, class High.
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

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 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.

Where it burned