Karimama fire, 4 March 2026 Karimama
The fire started on 4 March 2026 in Karimama, Benin, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,442 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 137th largest in Alibori since 2016 (of 534 with a page). Number 27 in Benin in 2026, of 99.
The power measured by the satellite is low (12.2 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 2,442ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 4days
- 4 Mar 2026 – 7 Mar 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- communes
- Started on
- 4 Mar
- 2026
- Heat detections
- 49
- in a single hotspot: 12 MW
- Danger at start
- 62
- Extreme · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 82MW
- 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 more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
82% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,063 ha in 2016, 266 ha in 2017, 1,321 ha in 2021, 947 ha in 2023, 169 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,994 ha that had burned before.
- 947 ha Karimama fire, December 2023 2,014 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 652 ha Karimama fire, November 2016 1,572 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 613 ha Karimama fire, January 2021 2,323 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 427 ha Karimama fire, December 2021 5,149 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 410 ha Karimama fire, December 2016 1,177 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 281 ha Karimama fire, December 2021 1,689 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 266 ha Karimama fire, November 2017 2,460 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 169 ha Karimama fire, February 2024 3,414 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
-
Karimama where it started2,455 ha reached on 4 Mar0.4 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4 Mar | 39.0 °C | 11 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 62 |
| 5 Mar | 38.4 °C | 22 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 6 Mar | 39.8 °C | 10 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 57 |
| 7 Mar | 40.1 °C | 8 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 61 |
| 8 Mar after | 41.7 °C | 10 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 59 |
| 9 Mar after | 41.6 °C | 12 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 64 |
| 10 Mar after | 42.2 °C | 13 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 11 Mar after | 39.9 °C | 22 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 62 |
| 12 Mar after | 41.7 °C | 10 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 62 |
| 13 Mar after | 41.1 °C | 13 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 61 |
| 14 Mar after | 41.8 °C | 9 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 56 |
| 15 Mar after | 40.0 °C | 13 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 60 |
| 16 Mar after | 38.8 °C | 7 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 67 |
| 17 Mar after | 37.9 °C | 4 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 55 |
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 4 March 2026 the air beside the fire reached 142 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 95: 6.3 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 · 49Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 8,479 haKarimama18 January 2026 · 11 days · 14 km away
- 9,325 haKarimama19 November 2017 · 12 days · 19 km away
- 8,379 haKarimama2 February 2026 · 7 days · 20 km away
- 8,466 haKarimama19 December 2024 · 10 days · 21 km away
- 15,140 haKarimama29 November 2021 · 8 days · 24 km away
- 11,904 haKarimama10 November 2017 · 17 days · 30 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Karimama fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 4 March 2026 and 7 March 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 2,442 hectares (24.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Karimama (2,455 ha, 0.4 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 40.1 °C, humidity dropped to 8 % and gusts hit 37 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 62, class Extreme.
- Where does this data come from?
- From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Benin (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
How we know this
- Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery.
- Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 49 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.
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 (Public Domain). 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.