Marella fire, 16 February 2026 Oure Kaba, Marella
The fire started on 16 February 2026 in Marella, Guinea, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,315 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 62th largest in Faranah since 2016 (of 208 with a page). Number 86 in Guinea in 2026, of 269.
- Burnt area
- 3,315ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 5days
- 16 Feb 2026 – 20 Feb 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- sub-prefectures
- Started on
- 16 Feb
- 2026
- Heat detections
- 113
- in a single hotspot: 33 MW
- Danger at start
- 50
- Very high · FWI index
- Energy released
- 1.0GW
- 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.
The weather it burned in
It had gone 11 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
95% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,279 ha in 2016, 2,041 ha in 2017, 501 ha in 2018, 611 ha in 2019, 1,797 ha in 2020, 1,114 ha in 2022, 818 ha in 2023, 1,141 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 3,136 ha that had burned before.
- 1,568 ha Marella fire, February 2020 2,805 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 868 ha Marella fire, April 2017 3,757 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 479 ha Oure Kaba fire, April 2019 2,354 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 189 ha Oure Kaba fire, March 2016 2,724 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
2,491 ha reached on 11 Feb1.5 %
-
Marella where it started846 ha reached on 9 Feb1.3 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 16 Feb | 34.1 °C | 12 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 50 |
| 17 Feb | 34.2 °C | 10 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 18 Feb | 32.9 °C | 13 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 19 Feb | 34.2 °C | 12 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 20 Feb | 34.7 °C | 10 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 21 Feb after | 34.9 °C | 9 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 22 Feb after | 35.1 °C | 8 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 50 |
| 23 Feb after | 35.4 °C | 8 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 24 Feb after | 34.2 °C | 9 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 25 Feb after | 35.0 °C | 9 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 26 Feb after | 32.7 °C | 25 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 27 Feb after | 33.7 °C | 21 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 28 Feb after | 31.8 °C | 22 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 1 Mar after | 30.3 °C | 18 % | 26 km/h | 0.2 mm | Very high 40 |
| 2 Mar after | 29.2 °C | 26 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
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 20 February 2026 the air beside the fire reached 95 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 60: 4.0 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 · 113Every 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 Marella fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 16 February 2026 and 20 February 2026: 5 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 3,315 hectares (33.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Oure Kaba (2,491 ha, 1.5 %); Marella (846 ha, 1.3 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 34.7 °C, humidity dropped to 10 % and gusts hit 42 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 50, class Very high.
- Where does this data come from?
- From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Guinea (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 3.0 Intergovernmental Organisations (CC BY 3.0 IGO)). 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.