How long did the Ngambé-Tikar fire last?

According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 7 February 2026 to 23 March 2026 (45 days). The perimeter dates it from 14 February 2026 to 16 March 2026.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 120,811 hectares (1,208.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 5 municipalities: Ngambé-Tikar (112,793 ha, 16 %); Yoko (7,717 ha, 0.5 %); Bankim (1,116 ha, 0.4 %); Malentouen (20 ha, 0.0 %); Magba (1 ha, 0.0 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 37.7 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 35 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 52, 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.

CM · Cameroon · 2026-02-07 → 2026-03-23

Ngambé-Tikar fire, 7 February 2026 Ngambé-Tikar, Yoko, Bankim

Out · last detection 23 Mar 2026, 13:25 UTC

The fire started on 7 February 2026 in Ngambé-Tikar, Cameroon, and satellites saw it burning for 45 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 120,811 hectares from heat detections, spread across 5 municipalities.

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 largest fire in Centre since 2016 (of 200 with a page). The largest in Cameroon in 2026, of 385.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Ngambé-Tikar · 2023 Ngambé-Tikar · 2025 Ngambé-Tikar · 2021 Ngambé-Tikar · 2020

Burnt area: 120,811ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 45days; 7 Feb 2026 – 23 Mar 2026
Municipalities hit: 5; communes
Started on: 7 Feb; 2026
Heat detections: 7,580; in a single hotspot: 381 MW
Danger at start: 38; High · FWI index
Average daily power: 2.1GW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 7 Feb23 Mar

Play back 23 Mar 2026

How it evolved, day by day

7 Feb 13 Feb 19 Feb 25 Feb 3 Mar 9 Mar 20 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

35km/h · peak gust

13%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.2 mm on 27 Mar.

This area had burned before

76% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 8,543 ha in 2016, 20,360 ha in 2017, 7,285 ha in 2019, 33,277 ha in 2020, 31,403 ha in 2021, 40,038 ha in 2022, 60,021 ha in 2023, 41,283 ha in 2024, 65,811 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 92,328 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

It burned the equivalent of 76% of the area of London (1,208 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

Ngambé-Tikar where it started

112,793 ha reached on 7 Feb

16 %
Yoko

7,717 ha reached on 16 Feb

0.5 %
Bankim

1,116 ha reached on 9 Feb

0.4 %
Malentouen

20 ha reached on 9 Feb

0.0 %
Magba

1 ha reached on 7 Feb

0.0 %

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 area13 ha

Residents≈ 1,400

Inside the perimeter there were about 13 hectares of built-up land and about 1,400 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)
7 Feb	35.3 °C	21 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	High 38
8 Feb	36.5 °C	19 %	23 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
9 Feb	35.8 °C	25 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44
10 Feb	35.4 °C	26 %	29 km/h	0.1 mm	Very high 45
11 Feb	29.5 °C	45 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
12 Feb	34.0 °C	30 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
13 Feb	35.9 °C	23 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
14 Feb	34.7 °C	25 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44
15 Feb	34.5 °C	26 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
16 Feb	36.5 °C	19 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
17 Feb	32.7 °C	30 %	22 km/h	0.0 mm	High 38
18 Feb	33.1 °C	26 %	22 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
19 Feb	33.6 °C	23 %	22 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
20 Feb	34.4 °C	17 %	23 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
21 Feb	34.9 °C	20 %	25 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
22 Feb	35.4 °C	20 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
23 Feb	35.3 °C	16 %	25 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
24 Feb	35.2 °C	19 %	22 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 45
25 Feb	33.8 °C	22 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 47
26 Feb	33.6 °C	19 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 45
27 Feb	35.3 °C	13 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
28 Feb	34.1 °C	17 %	21 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
1 Mar	33.8 °C	21 %	23 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44
2 Mar	34.1 °C	23 %	21 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
3 Mar	34.3 °C	20 %	25 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
4 Mar	33.4 °C	23 %	22 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
5 Mar	34.3 °C	16 %	23 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
6 Mar	34.4 °C	16 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
7 Mar	36.1 °C	16 %	23 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
8 Mar	35.9 °C	20 %	23 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 46
9 Mar	37.7 °C	14 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 52
10 Mar	34.9 °C	24 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 48
11 Mar	35.4 °C	27 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44
12 Mar	34.2 °C	34 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
13 Mar	33.5 °C	38 %	27 km/h	4.5 mm	Low 10
14 Mar	32.3 °C	52 %	28 km/h	14.5 mm	Very low 3
15 Mar	34.8 °C	31 %	30 km/h	0.1 mm	Moderate 19
16 Mar	33.3 °C	45 %	26 km/h	14.3 mm	Very low 2
17 Mar	29.8 °C	57 %	33 km/h	11.4 mm	Very low 1
18 Mar	31.7 °C	49 %	22 km/h	1.1 mm	Very low 3
19 Mar	32.0 °C	46 %	23 km/h	1.2 mm	Very low 5
20 Mar	34.3 °C	39 %	22 km/h	0.0 mm	Low 11
21 Mar	35.2 °C	26 %	20 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 18
22 Mar	33.9 °C	29 %	19 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 20
23 Mar	34.4 °C	27 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	High 21
24 Mar after	32.2 °C	50 %	23 km/h	0.6 mm	Moderate 16
25 Mar after	33.4 °C	34 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 21
26 Mar after	31.8 °C	54 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 16
27 Mar after	33.0 °C	47 %	34 km/h	1.2 mm	Low 10

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 31 Jan 2026

After · 30 Mar 2026

Before After

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 25 February 2026 the air beside the fire reached 95 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 82: 5.5 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak95 µg/m³

Days over the guideline36 days

PM10307 µg/m³

Optical depth0.96

WHO 15

121314151617181920212223242526272812345678910111213141516171819

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 · 7,580Every 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

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 7 February 2026 to 23 March 2026 (45 days). The perimeter dates it from 14 February 2026 to 16 March 2026.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 120,811 hectares (1,208.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 5 municipalities: Ngambé-Tikar (112,793 ha, 16 %); Yoko (7,717 ha, 0.5 %); Bankim (1,116 ha, 0.4 %); Malentouen (20 ha, 0.0 %); Magba (1 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 37.7 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 35 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 52, 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

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

History of this page · 2 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.

26 October 2026 Last day with fire: 16 March 2026 → 23 March 2026.
26 October 2026 Start date: 14 February 2026 → 7 February 2026.

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.

Report an error

What do you think is wrong?

Dates or duration Place or towns Burned area Name It was not a wildfire Same fire as another page Something else

What really happened?

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How we know this

Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery; 23 polygons grouped in this page.
Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 14 February 2026 to 16 March 2026. 7,580 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.

Where it burned