Burned area
satellite only3,108ha
Perimeter published by GWIS (Copernicus).
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus)
- Date
- 3 Mar 2024 – 7 Mar 2024
+− cross-check
No official record is matched to this page to compare it with.
CM · Cameroon · –
Meiganga fire, 3 March 2024 Meiganga, Garoua-Boulaï
Out · last detection 8 Mar 2024, 12:47 UTC
The fire started on 3 March 2024 in Meiganga, Cameroon, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,108 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 11th largest in Adamaoua since 2016 (of 168 with a page). Number 13 in Cameroon in 2024, of 195.
Use this data
Compare with…
Use this data
Fire page data · version 2026-10-27matches 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 only5days
3 Mar 2024 to 7 Mar 2024: first and last day with fire on the page.
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
- Date
- last detection: 8 Mar 2024, 12:47 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 only3 Mar 2024
First day with fire seen by the satellites or the perimeter.
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
- Date
- 3 Mar 2024
+− cross-check
No official record is matched to this page, so the alert time and the cause are not known here.
The worst day
satellite only1,120MW
Total radiative power on 5 March 2024; hotspots that day: 77.
- Source
- NASA FIRMS · VIIRS (FRP)
- Date
- 5 Mar 2024
+− 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
model29.4FWI · high
Fire Weather Index (Canadian system) computed by WorldFires for the day the fire started. Consecutive days without rain before: 2.
- Source
- WorldFires calculation (Canadian FWI system)
- Date
- 3 Mar 2024, 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
model35.2°C · 29% RH
High of 35.2 °C and minimum humidity of 29% on 5 March 2024; gusts of 31 km/h on 3 March 2024.
- Source
- weather model at the fire’s grid cell
- Date
- 3 Mar 2024 – 7 Mar 2024
- 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≈ 30people
Estimated residents inside the perimeter and 0.49 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: 14 March 2024 → 7 March 2024.
-
logStart date: 26 February 2024 → 3 March 2024.
-
logLast day with fire: 7 March 2024 → 14 March 2024.
-
logStart date: 3 March 2024 → 26 February 2024.
-
· reconstructed GHSLPopulation and built-up area computed
Area logged each night
Move the slider to see which area the page published each day.
Versioned permanent link
https://worldfires.org/en/fire/meiganga-2024-03?v=2026-10-27A 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-2024-03.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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2024-03-03 | 4 | 43 | 31.7 | 23.7 | 45 | 14.5 | 31.3 | 0.1 | 29.4 | alto | 1 |
| 2024-03-04 | 7 | 53 | 34.4 | 22.7 | 29 | 10.2 | 22 | 0 | 30.9 | alto | 1 |
| 2024-03-05 | 77 | 1,120 | 35.2 | 23.8 | 29 | 9.4 | 22 | 0 | 31.3 | alto | 1 |
| 2024-03-06 | 0 | 0 | 33 | 23.7 | 42 | 11 | 30.6 | 10.6 | 5.1 | muy_bajo | 1 |
| 2024-03-07 | 5 | 19 | 31.2 | 22.3 | 48 | 10.9 | 26.3 | 0 | 13.1 | moderado | 1 |
| 2024-03-08 | 1 | 9 | 31.6 | 22.4 | 44 | 11.2 | 29.2 | 0.2 | 18.7 | moderado | 0 |
| 2024-03-09 | 0 | 0 | 30.7 | 22 | 42 | 10.5 | 24.1 | 0 | 19.9 | moderado | 0 |
| 2024-03-10 | 0 | 0 | 33.5 | 23.8 | 38 | 9.5 | 23 | 0 | 22.1 | alto | 0 |
| 2024-03-11 | 0 | 0 | 33.8 | 23.8 | 39 | 10.1 | 24.5 | 0 | 22.8 | alto | 0 |
| 2024-03-12 | 0 | 0 | 32.8 | 24.1 | 40 | 9.7 | 24.1 | 0 | 23 | alto | 0 |
| 2024-03-13 | 0 | 0 | 34.1 | 23.3 | 36 | 14.9 | 29.2 | 0.7 | 26.4 | alto | 0 |
| 2024-03-14 | 0 | 0 | 33.2 | 22 | 35 | 11.6 | 25.9 | 0.9 | 22.8 | alto | 0 |
| 2024-03-15 | 0 | 0 | 33.2 | 21.7 | 37 | 10.2 | 24.8 | 0 | 24.2 | alto | 0 |
| 2024-03-16 | 0 | 0 | 34 | 22.5 | 39 | 11.9 | 23.8 | 1.7 | 16.8 | moderado | 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
- 3,108ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 5days
- 3 Mar 2024 – 7 Mar 2024
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- communes
- Started on
- 3 Mar
- 2024
- Heat detections
- 94
- in a single hotspot: 0 MW
- Danger at start
- 29
- High · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 249MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
HOTSPOTS BY DAY
3 Mar7 Mar
8 Mar 2024
How it evolved, day by day
3 Mar
4 Mar
5 Mar
7 Mar
8 Mar
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
31km/h · peak gust
29%lowest humidity
It had gone 2 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.7 mm on 16 Mar.
This area had burned before
34% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 47 ha in 2016, 219 ha in 2017, 197 ha in 2019, 118 ha in 2021, 380 ha in 2022, 817 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,066 ha that had burned before.
- 422 ha Meiganga fire, February 2023 5,750 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 380 ha Meiganga fire, February 2022 1,654 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 219 ha Meiganga fire, February 2017 1,915 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 197 ha Meiganga fire, February 2019 1,039 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 125 ha Meiganga fire, February 2023 1,578 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 118 ha Meiganga fire, February 2021 2,936 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 47 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 started2,806 ha0.4 %
-
320 ha0.1 %
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 area0.49 ha
Residents≈ 30
Inside the perimeter there were about 0.49 hectares of built-up land and about 30 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)
| Day | High | Min. humidity | Peak gust | Rain | Danger (FWI) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3 Mar | 31.7 °C | 45 % | 31 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 29 |
| 4 Mar | 34.4 °C | 29 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 5 Mar | 35.2 °C | 29 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 6 Mar | 33.0 °C | 42 % | 31 km/h | 10.6 mm | Very low 5 |
| 7 Mar | 31.2 °C | 48 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 13 |
| 8 Mar after | 31.6 °C | 44 % | 29 km/h | 0.2 mm | Moderate 19 |
| 9 Mar after | 30.7 °C | 42 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 20 |
| 10 Mar after | 33.5 °C | 38 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 22 |
| 11 Mar after | 33.8 °C | 39 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 23 |
| 12 Mar after | 32.8 °C | 40 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 23 |
| 13 Mar after | 34.1 °C | 36 % | 29 km/h | 0.7 mm | High 26 |
| 14 Mar after | 33.2 °C | 35 % | 26 km/h | 0.9 mm | High 23 |
| 15 Mar after | 33.2 °C | 37 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 16 Mar after | 34.0 °C | 39 % | 24 km/h | 1.7 mm | Moderate 17 |
Its twins: fires that started in the same weather
It started with an FWI of 29.4, a minimum humidity of 45% and 2 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 14.
FWI at the start
29.4
Minimum humidity
45 %
Days without rain
2
this fire
chosen twins
rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar
Outlines of the closest twins
This fire · Meiganga fire, 3 March 2024
3,108 ha
5 days
FWI 29.4
Min. humidity 45 %
Bélabo fire, January 2025
1,003 ha
25 days
FWI 26.1
Min. humidity 46 %
116 km away, in 2025
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
Batouri fire, February 2020
1,510 ha
19 days
FWI 28.9
Min. humidity 38 %
181 km away, in 2020
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 1.8 mm on 1 Mar.
Dimako fire, February 2019
1,541 ha
13 days
FWI 25.0
Min. humidity 42 %
207 km away, in 2019
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 1.5 mm on 24 Feb.
Ngoura fire, January 2017
1,153 ha
4 days
FWI 18.9
Min. humidity 47 %
135 km away, in 2017
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
Meiganga fire, March 2019
1,028 ha
7 days
FWI 30.1
Min. humidity 32 %
28 km away, in 2019
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 4.1 mm on 9 Mar.
What happened to them
Fires in the area that started in similar weather: 14. With fewer than 15 we give no figures: they would be more noise than signal.
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
1.7 mmfirst rain
16 Mar9 days after it ended
31km/h · max. gust
It was considered over on 7 Mar, and on 16 Mar 1.7 mm fell. We do not know whether the rain or the firefighters put it out.
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 Feb 2024
After · 14 Mar 2024
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 6 March 2024 the air beside the fire reached 133 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 71: 4.7 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
PM2.5 peak133 µg/m³
Days over the guideline10 days
PM10194 µg/m³
Optical depth2.45
WHO 15
1 Mar3 Mar5 Mar7 Mar9 Mar
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 · 0Every 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
- 3,654 haMeiganga9 February 2025 · 27 days · 4 km away
- 1,915 haMeigangaFebruary 2017 · 20 days · 6 km away
- 5,750 haMeiganga1 February 2023 · 29 days · 7 km away
- 2,936 haMeiganga16 February 2021 · 21 days · 7 km away
- 2,490 haMeiganga4 March 2024 · 2 days · 7 km away
- 1,912 haMeiganga3 February 2023 · 18 days · 7 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Meiganga fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 3 March 2024 and 7 March 2024: 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 3,108 hectares (31.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Meiganga (2,806 ha, 0.4 %); Garoua-Boulaï (320 ha, 0.1 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 35.2 °C, humidity dropped to 29 % and gusts hit 31 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 31, class High.
- 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
History of this page · 4 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
- Last day with fire: 14 March 2024 → 7 March 2024.
- Start date: 26 February 2024 → 3 March 2024.
- Last day with fire: 7 March 2024 → 14 March 2024.
- Start date: 3 March 2024 → 26 February 2024.
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.
- Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. No 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.