Burned area
satellite only5,750ha
Union of 2 GWIS (Copernicus) perimeters: overlapping areas count once.
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus)
- Date
- 1 Feb 2023 – 1 Mar 2023
+− cross-check
No official record is matched to this page to compare it with.
CM · Cameroon · –
Meiganga fire, 1 February 2023 Meiganga, Garoua-Boulaï
Out · last detection 1 Mar 2023, 12:42 UTC
The fire started on 1 February 2023 in Meiganga, Cameroon, and satellites saw it burning for 29 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,750 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 2th largest in Adamaoua since 2016 (of 168 with a page). Number 15 in Cameroon in 2023, of 270.
Use this data
Compare with…
Use this data
Fire page data · version 2026-10-26matches the official recordwith caveatssatellite onlymodel
When copying, the sentence is
Tick the figures you want: they make up the lede and the CSV.
Duration by satellite
satellite only29days
1 Feb 2023 to 1 Mar 2023: first and last day with fire on the page.
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
- Date
- last detection: 1 Mar 2023, 12:42 UTC
+− cross-check
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.
Start
satellite only1 Feb 2023
First day with fire seen by the satellites or the perimeter.
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
- Date
- 1 Feb 2023
+− cross-check
No official record is matched to this page, so the alert time and the cause are not known here.
Hotspots
satellite only249
VIIRS detections at 375 m. Most intense hotspot: 180 MW.
- Source
- NASA FIRMS · VIIRS (Suomi NPP)
- Date
- 1 Feb 2023 – 1 Mar 2023
+− cross-check
There is no official record to compare with. Each hotspot is a pixel detected in one satellite pass, not a separate fire.
The worst day
satellite only1,742MW
Total radiative power on 13 February 2023; hotspots that day: 32.
- Source
- NASA FIRMS · VIIRS (FRP)
- Date
- 13 Feb 2023
+− cross-check
Fire radiative power (FRP) measures the energy the fire gives off when the satellite passes. Added up by day, it compares intensity, not area.
Danger at the start
model31.9FWI · high
Fire Weather Index (Canadian system) computed by WorldFires for the day the fire started. Consecutive days without rain before: 60.
- Source
- WorldFires calculation (Canadian FWI system)
- Date
- 1 Feb 2023, local noon
- Model
- ERA5 0,25° (ECMWF · Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com
+− cross-check
This is an index computed from weather model data, not a measurement of the fire nor an official warning. Danger warnings are issued by each country’s authority. Emergency number and official warnings
Weather during the fire
model35.4°C · 13% RH
High of 35.4 °C and minimum humidity of 13% on 12 February 2023; gusts of 42 km/h on 18 February 2023.
- Source
- weather model at the fire’s grid cell
- Date
- 1 Feb 2023 – 1 Mar 2023
- Model
- ERA5 0,25° (ECMWF · Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com
+− cross-check
These are model values for a cell of about 25 km, not from a weather station: they may differ from what was measured on the ground.
Living inside
model≈ 40people
Estimated residents inside the perimeter and 0.62 ha of built-up area (100 m grid, epoch 2025).
- Source
- GHSL R2023A · JRC
- Date
- calculated on 24 October 2026
+− cross-check
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.
This page’s change log has been kept since 24 October 2026: every night what it publishes is compared and the difference is logged. Anything earlier is reconstructed from each source’s date and marked as reconstructed.
Show
-
· reconstructed weatherWeather and FWI computed from the ERA5 reanalysis
-
logLast day with fire: 22 February 2023 → 1 March 2023.
-
logStart date: 6 February 2023 → 1 February 2023.
-
· reconstructed GHSLPopulation and built-up area computed
What was saved on 26 October 2026
Every night a snapshot of what the page shows is saved. If anything changes, it appears in the list as a log entry.
- Area
- 5,752 ha
- Dates
- 1 Feb 2023 – 1 Mar 2023
- Name
- Meiganga
- Official record
- —
Versioned permanent link
https://worldfires.org/en/fire/meiganga-2023-02?v=2026-10-26A version keeps the area, dates, name and official record; the area as it was logged (changes under 2% are not logged). The map, hotspots and weather always show today’s data.
Citation
A lede of about 60 words figures only, no adjectives
CSV for this fire meiganga-2023-02.csv · daily, no individual hotspots
| fecha | focos_viirs | frp_mw | tmax_c | tmin_c | hr_min_pct | viento_max_kmh | racha_max_kmh | precip_mm | fwi | clase_fwi | dentro_del_incendio |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2023-02-01 | 3 | 16 | 32.1 | 18.9 | 29 | 9.2 | 25.6 | 0 | 31.9 | alto | 1 |
| 2023-02-02 | 3 | 51 | 33.6 | 18 | 17 | 10.7 | 25.6 | 0 | 47.8 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2023-02-03 | 1 | 2 | 33.1 | 19.1 | 19 | 12.7 | 31.3 | 0 | 54.2 | extremo | 1 |
| 2023-02-04 | 2 | 34 | 34 | 19.5 | 16 | 17 | 41 | 0 | 68.4 | extremo | 1 |
| 2023-02-05 | 1 | 2 | 35 | 20.9 | 10 | 14 | 30.2 | 0 | 61.2 | extremo | 1 |
| 2023-02-06 | 16 | 520 | 34.6 | 19.3 | 14 | 13.4 | 24.5 | 0 | 53 | extremo | 1 |
| 2023-02-07 | 8 | 62 | 34.1 | 20.5 | 12 | 14 | 33.5 | 0 | 58.2 | extremo | 1 |
| 2023-02-08 | 6 | 57 | 35 | 19.1 | 12 | 13.5 | 33.8 | 0 | 60.1 | extremo | 1 |
| 2023-02-09 | 7 | 155 | 34.2 | 19.8 | 16 | 12 | 31 | 0 | 58.1 | extremo | 1 |
| 2023-02-10 | 5 | 99 | 34.2 | 18.9 | 14 | 11.3 | 26.3 | 0 | 55.4 | extremo | 1 |
| 2023-02-11 | 0 | 0 | 34.6 | 19.2 | 14 | 14.2 | 31.3 | 0 | 61.1 | extremo | 1 |
| 2023-02-12 | 6 | 19 | 35.4 | 19.6 | 13 | 17 | 40 | 0 | 72.9 | muy_extremo | 1 |
| 2023-02-13 | 32 | 1,742 | 34.3 | 19.9 | 12 | 15.4 | 31 | 0 | 61.3 | extremo | 1 |
| 2023-02-14 | 9 | 45 | 34.1 | 20.7 | 14 | 15.6 | 31.7 | 0 | 64.2 | extremo | 1 |
| 2023-02-15 | 31 | 1,242 | 33.5 | 19.1 | 16 | 17.4 | 33.1 | 0 | 62.1 | extremo | 1 |
| 2023-02-16 | 1 | 1 | 31.1 | 18.9 | 16 | 16.1 | 36.7 | 0 | 63.8 | extremo | 1 |
| 2023-02-17 | 8 | 68 | 32.8 | 18.5 | 16 | 17.8 | 40.7 | 0 | 71.6 | muy_extremo | 1 |
| 2023-02-18 | 24 | 346 | 32.9 | 18.5 | 13 | 18.2 | 42.1 | 0 | 74.5 | muy_extremo | 1 |
| 2023-02-19 | 14 | 230 | 33.3 | 18.7 | 16 | 17.3 | 38.5 | 0 | 69.3 | extremo | 1 |
| 2023-02-20 | 13 | 248 | 33.8 | 19.7 | 15 | 13.5 | 32.8 | 0 | 60.2 | extremo | 1 |
| 2023-02-21 | 8 | 75 | 34.9 | 19.3 | 17 | 12 | 32 | 0 | 60.4 | extremo | 1 |
| 2023-02-22 | 2 | 1 | 34.7 | 19.1 | 16 | 9.2 | 25.9 | 0 | 54.1 | extremo | 1 |
| 2023-02-23 | 4 | 48 | 33.8 | 19 | 19 | 9.3 | 18.7 | 0 | 48.1 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2023-02-24 | 16 | 124 | 33.6 | 18.7 | 22 | 10.5 | 25.9 | 0 | 40.6 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2023-02-25 | 12 | 349 | 32.9 | 19.1 | 17 | 9.1 | 23.8 | 0 | 41.9 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2023-02-26 | 3 | 28 | 32.5 | 19.2 | 28 | 11.2 | 26.6 | 0 | 39.8 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2023-02-27 | 2 | 1 | 34.2 | 19.9 | 15 | 9.4 | 20.2 | 0 | 43.1 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2023-02-28 | 5 | 177 | 32.4 | 19.2 | 23 | 11.3 | 26.3 | 0 | 34.8 | alto | 1 |
| 2023-03-01 | 7 | 124 | 33 | 19.6 | 28 | 12.5 | 29.5 | 0 | 38 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2023-03-02 | 0 | 0 | 34.3 | 20.7 | 25 | 10.8 | 25.6 | 0 | 35.5 | alto | 0 |
| 2023-03-03 | 0 | 0 | 31.9 | 23.4 | 39 | 11.9 | 27.4 | 0.1 | 32.9 | alto | 0 |
| 2023-03-04 | 0 | 0 | 33.2 | 22.7 | 31 | 8.3 | 24.5 | 0 | 32.7 | alto | 0 |
| 2023-03-05 | 0 | 0 | 35.2 | 23.7 | 24 | 13.7 | 36 | 0 | 46.6 | muy_alto | 0 |
| 2023-03-06 | 0 | 0 | 35.7 | 22.4 | 18 | 9.5 | 27.7 | 0 | 42.2 | muy_alto | 0 |
| 2023-03-07 | 0 | 0 | 35.6 | 20 | 17 | 11.4 | 24.5 | 0 | 40.9 | muy_alto | 0 |
| 2023-03-08 | 0 | 0 | 34.4 | 21.8 | 20 | 13.5 | 31.3 | 0 | 40.6 | muy_alto | 0 |
| 2023-03-09 | 0 | 0 | 32.3 | 22.3 | 35 | 11.6 | 28.1 | 0 | 38 | muy_alto | 0 |
| 2023-03-10 | 0 | 0 | 30 | 21.1 | 44 | 9.1 | 28.1 | 2.8 | 29.9 | alto | 0 |
It is generated in your browser from this page’s data: one file per fire, aggregated by day and without individual hotspots.
Live widget for your story
It updates itself while the fire is still active and links to this page. Free, with the attribution shown at the bottom.
Sources for this page: GWIS (Copernicus), NASA FIRMS (VIIRS), ERA5 (ECMWF/Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0), GHSL (JRC). Open-Meteo.com · How we build fire pages: methodology
- Burnt area
- 5,750ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 29days
- 1 Feb 2023 – 1 Mar 2023
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- communes
- Started on
- 1 Feb
- 2023
- Heat detections
- 249
- in a single hotspot: 180 MW
- Danger at start
- 32
- High · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 209MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
HOTSPOTS BY DAY
1 Feb1 Mar
1 Mar 2023
How it evolved, day by day
1 Feb
7 Feb
13 Feb
20 Feb
26 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
35°high
42km/h · peak gust
10%lowest humidity
It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.8 mm on 10 Mar.
This area had burned before
67% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 413 ha in 2016, 442 ha in 2017, 848 ha in 2019, 2,106 ha in 2021, 1,797 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 3,869 ha that had burned before.
- 2,106 ha Meiganga fire, February 2021 2,936 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,277 ha Meiganga fire, February 2022 1,654 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 848 ha Meiganga fire, February 2019 1,039 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 442 ha Meiganga fire, February 2017 1,915 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 413 ha Meiganga fire, February 2016 1,089 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
How big is it?
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Paris boundary: geoBoundaries · Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière (IGN-F) (Etalab Open License 2.0).
Madrid boundary: geoBoundaries · Open Data ESRI, IGN Central Registry of Cartography Area (CC BY 4.0).
Berlin boundary: geoBoundaries · Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy (dl-de/by-2-0).
This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.
What happened to each town
-
Meiganga where it started4,223 ha reached on 1 Feb0.6 %
-
1,035 ha reached on 3 Feb0.5 %
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 2025Built-up area0.62 ha
Residents≈ 40
Inside the perimeter there were about 0.62 hectares of built-up land and about 40 residents (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 60 days without rain: 50 % of the area in Cameroon
| Day | High | Min. humidity | Peak gust | Rain | Danger (FWI) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 Feb | 32.1 °C | 29 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 2 Feb | 33.6 °C | 17 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 3 Feb | 33.1 °C | 19 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 4 Feb | 34.0 °C | 16 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 68 |
| 5 Feb | 35.0 °C | 10 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 61 |
| 6 Feb | 34.6 °C | 14 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 7 Feb | 34.1 °C | 12 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 58 |
| 8 Feb | 35.0 °C | 12 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 60 |
| 9 Feb | 34.2 °C | 16 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 58 |
| 10 Feb | 34.2 °C | 14 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 55 |
| 11 Feb | 34.6 °C | 14 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 61 |
| 12 Feb | 35.4 °C | 13 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 73 |
| 13 Feb | 34.3 °C | 12 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 61 |
| 14 Feb | 34.1 °C | 14 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 64 |
| 15 Feb | 33.5 °C | 16 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 62 |
| 16 Feb | 31.1 °C | 16 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 64 |
| 17 Feb | 32.8 °C | 16 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 72 |
| 18 Feb | 32.9 °C | 13 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 74 |
| 19 Feb | 33.3 °C | 16 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 69 |
| 20 Feb | 33.8 °C | 15 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 60 |
| 21 Feb | 34.9 °C | 17 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 60 |
| 22 Feb | 34.7 °C | 16 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 23 Feb | 33.8 °C | 19 % | 19 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 24 Feb | 33.6 °C | 22 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 25 Feb | 32.9 °C | 17 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 26 Feb | 32.5 °C | 28 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 27 Feb | 34.2 °C | 15 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 28 Feb | 32.4 °C | 23 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 1 Mar | 33.0 °C | 28 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 2 Mar after | 34.3 °C | 25 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 3 Mar after | 31.9 °C | 39 % | 27 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 33 |
| 4 Mar after | 33.2 °C | 31 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 5 Mar after | 35.2 °C | 24 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 6 Mar after | 35.7 °C | 18 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 7 Mar after | 35.6 °C | 17 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 8 Mar after | 34.4 °C | 20 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 9 Mar after | 32.3 °C | 35 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 10 Mar after | 30.0 °C | 44 % | 28 km/h | 2.8 mm | High 30 |
Its twins: fires that started in the same weather
It started with an FWI of 31.9, a minimum humidity of 29% and more than two months without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 16.
FWI at the start
31.9
Minimum humidity
29 %
Days without rain
60+
this fire
chosen twins
rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar
Outlines of the closest twins
This fire · Meiganga fire, 1 February 2023
5,750 ha
29 days
FWI 31.9
Min. humidity 29 %
Meiganga fire, March 2024
1,829 ha
7 days
FWI 29.4
Min. humidity 27 %
15 km away, in 2024
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 2.6 mm on 13 Mar.
Bétaré-Oya fire, February 2025
4,932 ha
23 days
FWI 30.5
Min. humidity 27 %
127 km away, in 2025
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 3.3 mm on 5 Mar.
Kentzou fire, January 2018
1,326 ha
7 days
FWI 34.7
Min. humidity 29 %
209 km away, in 2018
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
Bétaré-Oya fire, January 2025
3,860 ha
28 days
FWI 25.1
Min. humidity 29 %
93 km away, in 2025
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
Meiganga fire, February 2025
1,177 ha
10 days
FWI 31.6
Min. humidity 36 %
33 km away, in 2025
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 1.8 mm on 17 Mar.
What happened to them
- 15 days
- median duration
- 1,514 ha
- median area
- 100 %
- went past 1,000 ha
- 3.3 mm
- rain at the end (median; 5 of 16 had it)
It was 3.8 times larger than the median of its twins and lasted 29 days, against 15 days.
None of its 16 twins burned more. The weather on the first day does not explain everything: the wind in the following days, the fuel and the firefighting also count. In 11 of 16, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 3.3 mm.
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
2.8 mmfirst rain
10 Mar9 days after it ended
42km/h · max. gust
It was considered over on 1 Mar, and on 10 Mar 2.8 mm fell. We do not know whether the rain or the firefighters put it out. Twins with rain when they ended: 5 of 16, with a median of 3.3 mm.
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.
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
↔
Before · 25 Jan 2023
After · 8 Mar 2023
Sentinel-2 did not pass over on that day. Try another date, or use false colour, which is daily.
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 23 February 2023 the air beside the fire reached 150 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 87: 5.8 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
PM2.5 peak150 µg/m³
Days over the guideline22 days
PM10212 µg/m³
Optical depth0.94
WHO 15
4 Feb9 Feb14 Feb19 Feb24 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 · 249Every 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 time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 2,490 haMeiganga4 March 2024 · 2 days · 1 km away
- 2,936 haMeiganga16 February 2021 · 21 days · 2 km away
- 3,108 haMeiganga3 March 2024 · 5 days · 7 km away
- 1,915 haMeigangaFebruary 2017 · 20 days · 8 km away
- 2,234 haGaroua-Boulaï3 March 2022 · 3 days · 9 km away
- 3,654 haMeiganga9 February 2025 · 27 days · 10 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Meiganga fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 1 February 2023 to 1 March 2023 (29 days). The perimeter dates it from 6 February 2023 to 22 February 2023.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 5,750 hectares (57.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Meiganga (4,223 ha, 0.6 %); Garoua-Boulaï (1,035 ha, 0.5 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 35.4 °C, humidity dropped to 10 % and gusts hit 42 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 74, class Very 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: 16. Their median duration was 15 days and their median area 1,514 ha; 100 % went past 1,000 ha. None of its 16 twins burned more. The weather on the first day does not explain everything: the wind in the following days, the fuel and the firefighting also count. In 11 of 16, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 3.3 mm.
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 · 2 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
- Last day with fire: 22 February 2023 → 1 March 2023.
- Start date: 6 February 2023 → 1 February 2023.
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.
Report an error
How we know this
- Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery; 2 polygons grouped in this page.
- Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 6 February 2023 to 22 February 2023. 249 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.
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.