Burned area
satellite only1,627ha
Perimeter published by GWIS (Copernicus).
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus)
- Date
- 3 Mar 2022 – 7 Mar 2022
+− cross-check
No official record is matched to this page to compare it with.
CM · Cameroon · –
Ngambé-Tikar fire, 3 March 2022 Ngambé-Tikar
Out · last detection 7 Mar 2022, 13:12 UTC
The fire started on 3 March 2022 in Ngambé-Tikar, Cameroon, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 1,627 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 85th largest in Centre since 2016 (of 178 with a page). Number 65 in Cameroon in 2022, of 200.
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 2022 to 7 Mar 2022: first and last day with fire on the page.
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
- Date
- last detection: 7 Mar 2022, 13:12 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 2022
First day with fire seen by the satellites or the perimeter.
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
- Date
- 3 Mar 2022
+− 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 only553MW
Total radiative power on 7 March 2022; hotspots that day: 19.
- Source
- NASA FIRMS · VIIRS (FRP)
- Date
- 7 Mar 2022
+− 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
model46.1FWI · very 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
- 3 Mar 2022, 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
model37.0°C · 18% RH
High of 37.0 °C and minimum humidity of 18% on 3 March 2022; gusts of 37 km/h on 5 March 2022.
- Source
- weather model at the fire’s grid cell
- Date
- 3 Mar 2022 – 7 Mar 2022
- 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≈ 20people
Estimated residents inside the perimeter and 0.22 ha of built-up area (100 m grid, epoch 2020).
- 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
-
logStart date: 24 February 2022 → 3 March 2022.
-
logStart date: 3 March 2022 → 24 February 2022.
-
· 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/ngambe-tikar-2022-03-3?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 ngambe-tikar-2022-03-3.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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2022-03-03 | 5 | 27 | 37 | 22.9 | 18 | 11.1 | 27 | 0 | 46.1 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2022-03-04 | 0 | 0 | 32.7 | 22.9 | 28 | 11.4 | 21.6 | 0 | 40 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2022-03-05 | 4 | 47 | 35.5 | 22.1 | 26 | 18.4 | 37.1 | 0 | 47.4 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2022-03-06 | 18 | 272 | 35 | 21.5 | 30 | 12.7 | 24.5 | 0 | 40.3 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2022-03-07 | 19 | 553 | 33.5 | 23.7 | 35 | 11.1 | 23.4 | 0.4 | 35.3 | alto | 1 |
| 2022-03-08 | 0 | 0 | 36 | 24.1 | 32 | 13.2 | 26.3 | 0.1 | 37.3 | alto | 0 |
| 2022-03-09 | 0 | 0 | 35.5 | 22.8 | 41 | 9.7 | 25.9 | 8.8 | 6.2 | bajo | 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
- 1,627ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 5days
- 3 Mar 2022 – 7 Mar 2022
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- communes
- Started on
- 3 Mar
- 2022
- Heat detections
- 46
- in a single hotspot: 0 MW
- Danger at start
- 46
- Very high · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 224MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
HOTSPOTS BY DAY
3 Mar7 Mar
7 Mar 2022
How it evolved, day by day
3 Mar
5 Mar
6 Mar
7 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
37°high
37km/h · peak gust
18%lowest humidity
It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 8.8 mm on 9 Mar.
This area had burned before
62% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,012 ha in 2021.
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
-
Ngambé-Tikar where it started1,637 ha0.2 %
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 2020Built-up area0.22 ha
Residents≈ 20
Inside the perimeter there were about 0.22 hectares of built-up land and about 20 residents (GHSL 2020, 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.
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3 Mar | 37.0 °C | 18 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 4 Mar | 32.7 °C | 28 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 5 Mar | 35.5 °C | 26 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 6 Mar | 35.0 °C | 30 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 7 Mar | 33.5 °C | 35 % | 23 km/h | 0.4 mm | High 35 |
| 8 Mar after | 36.0 °C | 32 % | 26 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 37 |
| 9 Mar after | 35.5 °C | 41 % | 26 km/h | 8.8 mm | Low 6 |
Its twins: fires that started in the same weather
It started with an FWI of 46.1, a minimum humidity of 18% and more than two months without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 44.
FWI at the start
46.1
Minimum humidity
18 %
Days without rain
60+
this fire
chosen twins
rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar
Outlines of the closest twins
This fire · Ngambé-Tikar fire, 3 March 2022
1,627 ha
5 days
FWI 46.1
Min. humidity 18 %
Massangam fire, February 2025
17,184 ha
30 days
FWI 46.9
Min. humidity 18 %
51 km away, in 2025
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 5.1 mm on 20 Mar.
Ngambé-Tikar fire, January 2020
20,598 ha
54 days
FWI 44.6
Min. humidity 18 %
44 km away, in 2020
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
Bankim fire, February 2020
1,036 ha
10 days
FWI 45.4
Min. humidity 18 %
88 km away, in 2020
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
Massangam fire, February 2016
1,435 ha
5 days
FWI 47.4
Min. humidity 18 %
70 km away, in 2016
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 3.7 mm on 2 Mar.
Ngambé-Tikar fire, February 2025
2,249 ha
22 days
FWI 44.8
Min. humidity 19 %
22 km away, in 2025
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
What happened to them
- 16 days
- median duration
- 1,624 ha
- median area
- 100 %
- went past 1,000 ha
- 2.4 mm
- rain at the end (median; 26 of 44 had it)
It burned an area similar to its twins (1,627 ha against a median of 1,624 ha) and lasted 5 days, against 16 days.
In 18 of 44, 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 2.4 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
8.8 mmfirst rain
9 Mar2 days after it ended
37km/h · max. gust
It was considered over on 7 Mar, and on 9 Mar 8.8 mm fell. We do not know whether the rain or the firefighters put it out. Twins with rain when they ended: 26 of 44, with a median of 2.4 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 · 24 Feb 2022
After · 14 Mar 2022
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.
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
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Ngambé-Tikar fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 3 March 2022 and 7 March 2022: 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 1,627 hectares (16.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Ngambé-Tikar (1,637 ha, 0.2 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 37.0 °C, humidity dropped to 18 % and gusts hit 37 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 47, class Very 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.
- 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: 44. Their median duration was 16 days and their median area 1,624 ha; 100 % went past 1,000 ha. In 18 of 44, 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 2.4 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.
- Start date: 24 February 2022 → 3 March 2022.
- Start date: 3 March 2022 → 24 February 2022.
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 2020, 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.