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CM · Cameroon · –

Ngambé-Tikar fire, 9 February 2025 Ngambé-Tikar

Out · last detection 19 Mar 2025, 11:57 UTC

The fire started on 9 February 2025 in Ngambé-Tikar, Cameroon, and satellites saw it burning for 39 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 27,810 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 2th largest in Centre since 2016 (of 178 with a page). The largest in Cameroon in 2025, of 158.

Burnt area
27,810ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
39days
9 Feb 2025 – 19 Mar 2025
Municipalities hit
1
communes
Started on
9 Feb
2025
Heat detections
4,447
in a single hotspot: 190 MW
Danger at start
54
Extreme · FWI index
Average daily power
959MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 9 Feb19 Mar
19 Mar 2025

How it evolved, day by day

9 Feb 2025 · 61 MW · 36 10 Feb 2025 · 3,555 MW · 241 11 Feb 2025 · 1,171 MW · 270 12 Feb 2025 · 545 MW · 108 13 Feb 2025 · 1,071 MW · 71 14 Feb 2025 · 2,368 MW · 170 15 Feb 2025 · 5,042 MW · 401 16 Feb 2025 · 831 MW · 313 17 Feb 2025 · 547 MW · 67 18 Feb 2025 · 415 MW · 54 19 Feb 2025 · 851 MW · 108 20 Feb 2025 · 2,428 MW · 204 21 Feb 2025 · 2,695 MW · 430 22 Feb 2025 · 1,297 MW · 330 23 Feb 2025 · 210 MW · 26 24 Feb 2025 · 2,400 MW · 183 25 Feb 2025 · 494 MW · 70 26 Feb 2025 · 71 MW · 86 27 Feb 2025 · 2,687 MW · 306 28 Feb 2025 · 3,349 MW · 308 1 Mar 2025 · 42 MW · 14 2 Mar 2025 · 1,152 MW · 113 3 Mar 2025 · 256 MW · 136 4 Mar 2025 · 10 MW · 4 5 Mar 2025 · 770 MW · 69 6 Mar 2025 · 201 MW · 39 7 Mar 2025 · 440 MW · 42 8 Mar 2025 · 22 MW · 17 9 Mar 2025 · 28 MW · 21 10 Mar 2025 · 146 MW · 20 11 Mar 2025 · 274 MW · 28 12 Mar 2025 · 139 MW · 15 13 Mar 2025 · 366 MW · 57 14 Mar 2025 · 73 MW · 39 15 Mar 2025 · 81 MW · 20 16 Mar 2025 · 275 MW · 20 17 Mar 2025 · 42 MW · 7 19 Mar 2025 · 25 MW · 4
9 Feb 15 Feb 25 Feb 5 Mar 13 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

40°high
44km/h · peak gust
8%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 3.1 mm on 21 Mar.

This area had burned before

73% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 135 ha in 2016, 3,743 ha in 2017, 1,585 ha in 2019, 5,349 ha in 2020, 6,672 ha in 2021, 8,747 ha in 2022, 18,370 ha in 2023, 12,553 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 20,275 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 18% of the area of London (278 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
    28,044 ha reached on 9 Feb
    4.0 %

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 area0.88 ha
Residents≈ 90

Inside the perimeter there were about 0.88 hectares of built-up land and about 90 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 Extreme FWI: 52 % of the area in Cameroon Very dry air: 32 % of the area in Cameroon 60 days without rain: 50 % of the area in Cameroon

Day High Min. humidity Peak gust Rain Danger (FWI)
9 Feb 37.3 °C 12 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
10 Feb 36.2 °C 19 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
11 Feb 36.4 °C 14 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
12 Feb 36.2 °C 14 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
13 Feb 36.0 °C 14 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
14 Feb 35.8 °C 16 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
15 Feb 35.9 °C 15 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
16 Feb 36.2 °C 8 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
17 Feb 36.0 °C 14 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
18 Feb 36.9 °C 15 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
19 Feb 33.6 °C 32 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
20 Feb 36.3 °C 17 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
21 Feb 35.4 °C 20 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
22 Feb 36.7 °C 19 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
23 Feb 36.7 °C 17 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
24 Feb 37.1 °C 20 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
25 Feb 34.6 °C 35 % 35 km/h 0.2 mm High 36
26 Feb 32.3 °C 36 % 31 km/h 0.4 mm High 30
27 Feb 35.6 °C 20 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
28 Feb 37.1 °C 15 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
1 Mar 37.2 °C 14 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
2 Mar 38.2 °C 13 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
3 Mar 37.7 °C 16 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
4 Mar 33.9 °C 31 % 40 km/h 0.1 mm High 33
5 Mar 35.1 °C 29 % 39 km/h 0.1 mm High 31
6 Mar 34.8 °C 21 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
7 Mar 36.6 °C 20 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
8 Mar 37.7 °C 14 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
9 Mar 36.1 °C 22 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
10 Mar 35.1 °C 31 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
11 Mar 36.6 °C 22 % 36 km/h 0.1 mm High 38
12 Mar 37.1 °C 15 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
13 Mar 39.5 °C 8 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
14 Mar 35.1 °C 27 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
15 Mar 37.4 °C 17 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
16 Mar 38.5 °C 16 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
17 Mar 36.5 °C 19 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
18 Mar 35.9 °C 23 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
19 Mar 35.0 °C 33 % 23 km/h 0.4 mm High 31
20 Mar after 34.7 °C 34 % 27 km/h 0.7 mm High 35
21 Mar after 36.2 °C 30 % 35 km/h 3.1 mm High 25

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 53.8, a minimum humidity of 12% and more than two months without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 29.

FWI at the start 53.8
Minimum humidity 12 %
Days without rain 60+
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Ngambé-Tikar fire, February 2020
1,217 ha 13 days FWI 53.7 Min. humidity 13 % 17 km away, in 2020

First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.

What happened to them

13 days
median duration
1,248 ha
median area
100 %
went past 1,000 ha
7.1 mm
rain at the end (median; 18 of 29 had it)

It was 22.3 times larger than the median of its twins and lasted 39 days, against 13 days.

None of its 29 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 29, 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 7.1 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

3.1 mmfirst rain
21 Mar2 days after it ended
44km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 19 Mar, and on 21 Mar 3.1 mm fell. We do not know whether the rain or the firefighters put it out. Twins with rain when they ended: 18 of 29, with a median of 7.1 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.

How we calculate it

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 2 Feb 2025
After · 26 Mar 2025

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 16 February 2025 the air beside the fire reached 227 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 146: 9.8 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak227 µg/m³
Days over the guideline33 days
PM10287 µg/m³
Optical depth2.65
14 Feb21 Feb28 Feb7 Mar14 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 · 4,447Every 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 9 February 2025 to 19 March 2025 (39 days). The perimeter dates it from 16 February 2025 to 16 March 2025.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 27,810 hectares (278.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Ngambé-Tikar (28,044 ha, 4.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 39.5 °C, humidity dropped to 8 % and gusts hit 44 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.
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: 29. Their median duration was 13 days and their median area 1,248 ha; 100 % went past 1,000 ha. None of its 29 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 29, 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 7.1 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.
  1. Last day with fire: 16 March 2025 → 19 March 2025.
  2. Start date: 16 February 2025 → 9 February 2025.

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
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How we know this
  • Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery; 5 polygons grouped in this page.
  • Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 16 February 2025 to 16 March 2025. 4,447 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.