Mansôa fire, March 2026 Mansôa, Mansabá
The fire started on 20 March 2026 in Mansôa, Guinea-Bissau, and satellites saw it burning for 17 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 1,986 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 13th largest in Oio since 2016 (of 58 with a page). Number 14 in Guinea-Bissau in 2026, of 75.
The power measured by the satellite is low (27.0 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
- 1,986ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 17days
- 20 Mar 2026 – 5 Apr 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- sectors
- Started on
- 20 Mar
- 2026
- Heat detections
- 32
- in a single hotspot: 27 MW
- Energy released
- 215MW
- 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
54% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1 ha in 2016, 453 ha in 2019, 124 ha in 2021, 232 ha in 2022, 607 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,075 ha that had burned before.
- 607 ha Mansôa fire, March 2024 2,091 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 453 ha Mansôa fire, February 2019 1,514 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 232 ha Mansôa fire, March 2022 1,841 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 121 ha Mansôa fire, March 2021 1,624 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 3 ha Mansôa fire, March 2021 1,524 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1 ha Mansôa fire, April 2016 1,687 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
Mansôa where it started1,967 ha reached on 20 Mar1.5 %
-
32 ha0.0 %
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 6 April 2026 the air beside the fire reached 42 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 32: 2.1 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 · 32Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Mansôa fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 20 March 2026 to 5 April 2026 (17 days). The perimeter dates it from 21 March 2026 to 30 March 2026.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 1,986 hectares (19.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Mansôa (1,967 ha, 1.5 %); Mansabá (32 ha, 0.0 %).
- Where does this data come from?
- From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Guinea-Bissau (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 ADM2 (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.