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CM · Cameroon · –

Logone-Birni fire, 1 February 2024 Logone-Birni

Out · last detection 16 Feb 2024, 12:42 UTC

The fire started on 1 February 2024 in Logone-Birni, Cameroon, and satellites saw it burning for 16 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 1,200 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 163th largest in Far North since 2016 (of 260 with a page). Number 123 in Cameroon in 2024, of 195.

Burnt area
1,200ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
16days
1 Feb 2024 – 16 Feb 2024
Municipalities hit
1
communes
Started on
1 Feb
2024
Heat detections
49
in a single hotspot: 34 MW
Danger at start
57
Extreme · FWI index
Average daily power
33MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 1 Feb16 Feb
16 Feb 2024

How it evolved, day by day

1 Feb 2024 · 9 MW · 3 2 Feb 2024 · 5 MW · 3 4 Feb 2024 · 60 MW · 11 5 Feb 2024 · 54 MW · 9 6 Feb 2024 · 5 MW · 1 8 Feb 2024 · 6 MW · 1 9 Feb 2024 · 94 MW · 8 10 Feb 2024 · 39 MW · 6 12 Feb 2024 · 43 MW · 2 13 Feb 2024 · 66 MW · 3 14 Feb 2024 · 6 MW · 1 16 Feb 2024 · 9 MW · 1
1 Feb 5 Feb 9 Feb 13 Feb

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

The weather it burned in

40°high
40km/h · peak gust
5%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

58% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 318 ha in 2017, 286 ha in 2019, 325 ha in 2020. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 701 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 0.8% of the area of London (12 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each town

  1. Logone-Birni where it started
    1,207 ha reached on 1 Feb
    0.4 %

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 2025
Built-up area< 0.1 ha
Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2025, 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. The GHSL 2025 epoch is a projection made from 2020 and earlier data.

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)

Started with Very dry air: 32 % of the area in Cameroon 60 days without rain: 50 % of the area in Cameroon

Day High Min. humidity Peak gust Rain Danger (FWI)
1 Feb 31.9 °C 13 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
2 Feb 30.9 °C 13 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
3 Feb 31.8 °C 11 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
4 Feb 32.5 °C 11 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
5 Feb 32.7 °C 10 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
6 Feb 32.3 °C 11 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
7 Feb 32.6 °C 12 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
8 Feb 34.4 °C 11 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
9 Feb 35.0 °C 9 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
10 Feb 36.5 °C 7 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
11 Feb 38.1 °C 8 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
12 Feb 39.8 °C 5 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 64
13 Feb 38.9 °C 5 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 69
14 Feb 38.2 °C 9 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 65
15 Feb 36.6 °C 10 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 63
16 Feb 35.2 °C 11 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 65
17 Feb after 35.5 °C 8 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
18 Feb after 37.0 °C 8 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
19 Feb after 38.6 °C 9 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
20 Feb after 39.9 °C 9 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 63
21 Feb after 39.1 °C 7 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 64
22 Feb after 38.3 °C 8 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 77
23 Feb after 34.1 °C 21 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 64
24 Feb after 36.5 °C 17 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
25 Feb after 36.9 °C 20 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
26 Feb after 38.6 °C 17 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 57.2, a minimum humidity of 13% and more than two months without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 23.

FWI at the start 57.2
Minimum humidity 13 %
Days without rain 60+
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Waza fire, January 2022
1,567 ha 13 days FWI 55.8 Min. humidity 13 % 24 km away, in 2022

First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.

What happened to them

11 days
median duration
1,567 ha
median area
100 %
went past 1,000 ha
—
rain at the end (median; 0 of 23 had it)

It burned an area similar to its twins (1,200 ha against a median of 1,567 ha) and lasted 16 days, against 11 days.

In none of them did 1 mm fall in the ten days after the end: they all went out without rain.

This is a bank of analogues: it shows what usually happens, not what will happen. With fewer than 15 twins we give no figures. How we calculate it

How it ended

—first rain
—no rain in ten days
40km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 16 Feb, and not even 1 mm fell in the following ten days: it went out without rain. None of its 23 twins had rain when they ended.

Weather on this page: Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)

How a twin is chosen

  • Same area: fires that have already ended, less than 250 km from this one, since 2016.
  • Same start: we compare the FWI on the first day, the minimum humidity that day and the run of days without rain before it. The slider sets how much they may differ.
  • Only pages with final weather data (ERA5 reanalysis) calculated in the same way as this fire’s; agricultural and grass burns and pages with data under review are left out.
  • Fires burning at the same time as this one (a week before or after) are left out: they share the same spell of weather and do not count as a precedent.
  • They are sorted by similarity, and the outlines of the first five are drawn.

How we calculate it

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 25 Jan 2024
After · 23 Feb 2024

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 5 February 2024 the air beside the fire reached 174 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 129: 8.6 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak174 µg/m³
Days over the guideline14 days
PM10523 µg/m³
Optical depth0.67
30 Jan2 Feb5 Feb8 Feb11 Feb
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 · 49Every 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 timeSatelliteFRP (MW)LatLon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Cameroon

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Logone-Birni fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 1 February 2024 to 16 February 2024 (16 days). The perimeter dates it from 1 February 2024 to 9 February 2024.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 1,200 hectares (12.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Logone-Birni (1,207 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 39.8 °C, humidity dropped to 5 % and gusts hit 40 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 69, class Extreme.
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.
How did the fires that started in similar weather in this area end?
Fires less than 250 km away that started since 2016 with a similar FWI, humidity and dry spell: 23. Their median duration was 11 days and their median area 1,567 ha; 100 % went past 1,000 ha. In none of them did 1 mm fall in the ten days after the end: they all went out without rain.

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 · 1 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
  1. Last day with fire: 9 February 2024 → 16 February 2024.

RSS Changes to this page With cross-checks and a citable version

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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How we know this
  • Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery.
  • Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 1 February 2024 to 9 February 2024. 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.
  • Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2025, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.

How we build fire pages: methodology

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.