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CM · Cameroon · →

Madingring fire, 10 January 2026 Madingring

Out · last detection 21 Jan 2026, 12:28 UTC

The fire started on 10 January 2026 in Madingring, Cameroon, and satellites saw it burning for 12 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,755 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 169th largest in North since 2016 (of 1648 with a page). Number 54 in Cameroon in 2026, of 378.

The power measured by the satellite is low (10.2 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Burnt area
2,755ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
12days
10 Jan 2026 – 21 Jan 2026
Municipalities hit
1
communes
Started on
10 Jan
2026
Heat detections
38
in a single hotspot: 10 MW
Danger at start
53
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
167MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

21 Jan 2026
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 10 Jan21 Jan

How it evolved, day by day

1112151617182021

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

The weather it burned in

37°high
38km/h · peak gust
3%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

9% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 170 ha in 2024, 203 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 258 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Madingring where it started
    2,773 ha reached on 9 Jan
    0.9 %

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)
10 Jan 33.7 °C 7 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
11 Jan 34.5 °C 15 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
12 Jan 34.9 °C 8 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
13 Jan 36.0 °C 10 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
14 Jan 35.3 °C 14 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
15 Jan 34.3 °C 9 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
16 Jan 35.6 °C 9 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
17 Jan 35.6 °C 12 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
18 Jan 36.3 °C 9 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
19 Jan 37.0 °C 3 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
20 Jan 36.9 °C 10 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
21 Jan 37.2 °C 14 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
22 Jan after 36.2 °C 10 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
23 Jan after 35.6 °C 6 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
24 Jan after 35.9 °C 9 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
25 Jan after 35.6 °C 12 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
26 Jan after 35.6 °C 10 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
27 Jan after 35.1 °C 6 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
28 Jan after 36.3 °C 8 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
29 Jan after 36.1 °C 8 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
30 Jan after 36.7 °C 13 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
31 Jan after 37.2 °C 9 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 3 Jan 2026
After · 28 Jan 2026

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 11 January 2026 the air beside the fire reached 64 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 52: 3.5 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak64 µg/m³
Days over the guideline16 days
PM10177 µg/m³
Optical depth0.51
89101112131415161718192021222324
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 · 38Every 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 Madingring fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 10 January 2026 and 21 January 2026: 12 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 2,755 hectares (27.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Madingring (2,773 ha, 0.9 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.2 °C, humidity dropped to 3 % and gusts hit 38 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 56, 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.

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.

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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 (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.