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Ngambé-Tikar fire, January 2023 Ngambé-Tikar

Out · last detection 8 Mar 2023, 12:11 UTC

The fire started on 23 January 2023 in Ngambé-Tikar, Cameroon, and satellites saw it burning for 45 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 36,493 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

This page is probably a fire complex, not a single fire. GWIS merges into one perimeter the fires that touch over weeks, which in large burning seasons can join dozens of separate fires. The total area is reliable; the origin and dates refer to the whole complex.

Other fire pages in the same area and on the same dates:

It is the 2th largest in Centre since 2016 (of 200 with a page). Number 2 in Cameroon in 2023, of 270.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Ngambé-Tikar · 2022Ngambé-Tikar · 2021Ngambé-Tikar · 2022Ngambé-Tikar · 2020

Burnt area
36,493ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
45days
23 Jan 2023 – 8 Mar 2023
Municipalities hit
1
communes
Started on
23 Jan
2023
Heat detections
5,126
in a single hotspot: 187 MW
Danger at start
40
Very high · FWI index
Average daily power
1.1GW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 23 Jan8 Mar
8 Mar 2023

How it evolved, day by day

23 Jan 2023 · 49 MW · 9 24 Jan 2023 · 60 MW · 9 25 Jan 2023 · 19 MW · 7 26 Jan 2023 · 55 MW · 11 27 Jan 2023 · 50 MW · 10 28 Jan 2023 · 70 MW · 13 29 Jan 2023 · 488 MW · 14 30 Jan 2023 · 153 MW · 15 31 Jan 2023 · 330 MW · 21 1 Feb 2023 · 83 MW · 16 2 Feb 2023 · 22 MW · 6 3 Feb 2023 · 329 MW · 32 4 Feb 2023 · 802 MW · 55 5 Feb 2023 · 619 MW · 82 6 Feb 2023 · 908 MW · 128 7 Feb 2023 · 1,868 MW · 203 8 Feb 2023 · 1,540 MW · 123 9 Feb 2023 · 572 MW · 98 10 Feb 2023 · 767 MW · 105 11 Feb 2023 · 2,785 MW · 262 12 Feb 2023 · 3,699 MW · 370 13 Feb 2023 · 1,654 MW · 152 14 Feb 2023 · 646 MW · 146 15 Feb 2023 · 896 MW · 174 16 Feb 2023 · 530 MW · 158 17 Feb 2023 · 1,706 MW · 220 18 Feb 2023 · 5,061 MW · 391 19 Feb 2023 · 3,255 MW · 351 20 Feb 2023 · 1,584 MW · 286 21 Feb 2023 · 3,249 MW · 391 22 Feb 2023 · 1,171 MW · 238 23 Feb 2023 · 2,804 MW · 252 24 Feb 2023 · 1,620 MW · 122 25 Feb 2023 · 64 MW · 40 26 Feb 2023 · 36 MW · 35 27 Feb 2023 · 439 MW · 96 28 Feb 2023 · 1,848 MW · 224 1 Mar 2023 · 2,550 MW · 128 2 Mar 2023 · 1,198 MW · 96 3 Mar 2023 · 81 MW · 10 5 Mar 2023 · 170 MW · 11 7 Mar 2023 · 92 MW · 12 8 Mar 2023 · 31 MW · 4
23 Jan 30 Jan 6 Feb 13 Feb 18 Feb 20 Feb 27 Feb 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

38°high
39km/h · peak gust
7%lowest humidity

It had gone 52 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 10.4 mm on 10 Mar.

This area had burned before

71% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,366 ha in 2016, 12,523 ha in 2017, 3,958 ha in 2019, 13,835 ha in 2020, 16,418 ha in 2021, 20,926 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 25,991 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 23% of the area of London (365 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each town

  1. Ngambé-Tikar where it started
    36,741 ha reached on 23 Jan
    5.3 %

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 2025
Built-up area4.2 ha
Residents≈ 450

Inside the perimeter there were about 4.2 hectares of built-up land and about 450 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)
23 Jan 35.3 °C 17 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
24 Jan 35.4 °C 17 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
25 Jan 35.0 °C 16 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
26 Jan 37.4 °C 13 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
27 Jan 36.5 °C 17 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
28 Jan 35.6 °C 20 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
29 Jan 36.1 °C 22 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
30 Jan 37.3 °C 20 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
31 Jan 35.8 °C 20 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
1 Feb 35.8 °C 23 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
2 Feb 36.0 °C 16 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
3 Feb 37.5 °C 15 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
4 Feb 37.5 °C 13 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
5 Feb 38.2 °C 7 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
6 Feb 36.1 °C 18 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
7 Feb 35.9 °C 13 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
8 Feb 37.1 °C 14 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
9 Feb 35.6 °C 16 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
10 Feb 37.2 °C 10 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
11 Feb 36.7 °C 11 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
12 Feb 37.7 °C 13 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
13 Feb 36.1 °C 13 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
14 Feb 36.0 °C 14 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
15 Feb 35.1 °C 15 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
16 Feb 33.8 °C 20 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
17 Feb 35.1 °C 14 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
18 Feb 35.4 °C 17 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
19 Feb 35.4 °C 20 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
20 Feb 35.9 °C 18 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
21 Feb 36.7 °C 17 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
22 Feb 36.1 °C 25 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
23 Feb 36.2 °C 19 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
24 Feb 36.2 °C 24 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
25 Feb 36.0 °C 21 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
26 Feb 35.6 °C 24 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
27 Feb 38.2 °C 12 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
28 Feb 36.9 °C 19 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
1 Mar 37.0 °C 21 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
2 Mar 37.7 °C 20 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
3 Mar 32.8 °C 44 % 27 km/h 0.2 mm High 31
4 Mar 33.9 °C 43 % 31 km/h 2.2 mm Moderate 13
5 Mar 35.3 °C 34 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
6 Mar 35.4 °C 24 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
7 Mar 37.1 °C 24 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
8 Mar 37.5 °C 22 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
9 Mar after 36.7 °C 28 % 41 km/h 0.2 mm Very high 45
10 Mar after 31.4 °C 45 % 27 km/h 10.4 mm Low 6

Before and after, from space

Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.

Before · 16 Jan 2023
After · 15 Mar 2023

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 · Copernicus

On 21 February 2023 the air beside the fire reached 374 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 203: 14 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak374 µg/m³
Days over the guideline39 days
PM10533 µg/m³
Optical depth2.14
2627282930311234567891011121314151617181920212223242526272812345
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 · 5,126Every 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 timeSatelliteFRP (MW)LatLon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Cameroon ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Ngambé-Tikar fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 23 January 2023 to 8 March 2023 (45 days). The perimeter dates it from 28 January 2023 to 2 March 2023.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 36,493 hectares (364.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Ngambé-Tikar (36,741 ha, 5.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 38.2 °C, humidity dropped to 7 % and gusts hit 39 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 54, class 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.

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.
  1. Last day with fire: 2 March 2023 → 8 March 2023.
  2. Start date: 28 January 2023 → 23 January 2023.

RSS Changes to this page

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.

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How we know this
  • Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery; 6 polygons grouped in this page.
  • Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 28 January 2023 to 2 March 2023. 5,126 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.

How we build fire pages: methodology ›

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.