Kunike fire, April 2026 Kunike
The fire started on 18 April 2026 in Kunike, Sierra Leone, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 1,394 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 506th largest in Northern since 2016 (of 1112 with a page). Number 166 in Sierra Leone in 2026, of 305.
- Burnt area
- 1,394ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 6days
- 18 Apr 2026 – 23 Apr 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- chiefdoms
- Started on
- 18 Apr
- 2026
- Heat detections
- 19
- in a single hotspot: 56 MW
- Energy released
- 321MW
- sum of detected power
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.
This area had burned before
98% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 26 ha in 2016, 315 ha in 2019, 1,096 ha in 2020, 31 ha in 2021, 387 ha in 2022, 1,171 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,366 ha that had burned before.
- 1,169 ha Kunike fire, March 2025 3,197 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 709 ha Kunike fire, March 2020 1,268 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 387 ha Kunike fire, March 2020 3,593 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 387 ha Kunike fire, March 2022 2,255 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 314 ha Kunike fire, March 2019 1,607 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 31 ha Kunike fire, March 2021 2,274 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 26 ha Kunike fire, April 2016 2,775 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2 ha Kunike fire, March 2019 3,703 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
Kunike where it started1,404 ha reached on 18 Apr1.8 %
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 21 April 2026 the air beside the fire reached 67 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 54: 3.6 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 · 19Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 11,897 haKunike28 March 2026 · 11 days · 7 km away
- 7,753 haSambaya16 March 2022 · 8 days · 12 km away
- 6,826 haSandor26 March 2016 · 15 days · 19 km away
- 9,579 haNieni8 March 2022 · 16 days · 20 km away
- 24,116 haSandor27 February 2019 · 22 days · 24 km away
- 6,232 haNieni4 March 2019 · 17 days · 31 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Kunike fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 18 April 2026 to 23 April 2026 (6 days). The perimeter dates it from 18 April 2026 to 21 April 2026.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 1,394 hectares (13.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Kunike (1,404 ha, 1.8 %).
- Where does this data come from?
- From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Sierra Leone (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 ADM3 (Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 (CC BY 4.0)). 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.