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Mahaica-Berbice fire, 21 October 2026 Mahaica-Berbice

Burning · last detection 23 Oct 2026, 17:02 UTC

The fire started on 21 October 2026 in Mahaica-Berbice, Guyana, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 1,700 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

Number 4 in Guyana in 2026, of 18.

Is it still active?

Satellites detected fire on 23 Oct 2026, 17:02 UTC. Everything suggests it is still burning. Satellites pass a few times a day and cloud or smoke can hide the fire: a lack of detections is not an official extinction. Each country’s emergency service declares a fire contained or out.

Burnt area
1,700ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
3days
21 Oct 2026 – 23 Oct 2026
Municipalities hit
1
regions
Started on
21 Oct
2026
Heat detections
66
in a single hotspot: 54 MW
Danger at start
2
Very low · FWI index
Energy released
764MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

23 Oct 2026
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 21 Oct23 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

212223

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

The weather it burned in

33°high
36km/h · peak gust
52%lowest humidity

It had gone 0 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

100% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,731 ha in 2016, 739 ha in 2019, 1,460 ha in 2023, 1,006 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,711 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Mahaica-Berbice where it started
    1,712 ha reached on 21 Oct
    0.4 %

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)
21 Oct 32.4 °C 55 % 36 km/h 0.7 mm Very low 2
22 Oct 33.2 °C 52 % 36 km/h 0.3 mm Low 6
23 Oct 32.2 °C 55 % 32 km/h 0.2 mm Low 6

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 14 Oct 2026
After · 22 Oct 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 22 October 2026 the air beside the fire reached 21 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak21 µg/m³
Days over the guideline0 days
PM1023 µg/m³
Optical depth0.32
19202122
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 · 66Every 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 Guyana ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Mahaica-Berbice fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 21 October 2026 to 23 October 2026 (3 days). The perimeter dates it from 21 October 2026 to 22 October 2026.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 1,700 hectares (17.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Mahaica-Berbice (1,712 ha, 0.4 %).
Is the Mahaica-Berbice fire still active?
Yes: satellites detected fire on 23 Oct 2026, 17:02 UTC. Check the emergency service for the official status.
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 33.2 °C, humidity dropped to 52 % and gusts hit 36 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 6, class Low.
Where does this data come from?
From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Guyana (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.

Emergency number: 912

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
What do you think is wrong?

We will only use your email to reply about this report. Privacy. This is not an emergency service: if there is a fire now, call 912.

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 ADM1 (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.