Skip to content
worldfires
CM · Cameroon · →

Ngong fire, 3 January 2026 Ngong

Out · last detection 18 Jan 2026, 00:39 UTC

The fire started on 3 January 2026 in Ngong, Cameroon, and satellites saw it burning for 17 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,911 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 34th largest in North since 2016 (of 1648 with a page). Number 20 in Cameroon in 2026, of 376.

Burnt area
4,911ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
17days
3 Jan 2026 – 19 Jan 2026
Municipalities hit
1
communes
Started on
3 Jan
2026
Heat detections
113
in a single hotspot: 44 MW
Danger at start
48
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
582MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

18 Jan 2026
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 3 Jan19 Jan

How it evolved, day by day

456789121415161718

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
34km/h · peak gust
8%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

42% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 873 ha in 2017, 546 ha in 2019, 730 ha in 2025.

What happened to each town

  1. Ngong where it started
    4,941 ha reached on 4 Jan
    1.9 %

Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance is from the town centre to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.

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 Jan 35.9 °C 12 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
4 Jan 36.1 °C 8 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
5 Jan 34.8 °C 11 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
6 Jan 35.9 °C 9 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
7 Jan 36.4 °C 12 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
8 Jan 36.0 °C 12 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
9 Jan 35.1 °C 9 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
10 Jan 32.8 °C 14 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
11 Jan 32.7 °C 19 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
12 Jan 34.2 °C 13 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
13 Jan 34.3 °C 13 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
14 Jan 33.5 °C 14 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
15 Jan 33.8 °C 14 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
16 Jan 35.4 °C 13 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
17 Jan 35.9 °C 11 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
18 Jan 36.7 °C 12 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
19 Jan 36.7 °C 9 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
20 Jan after 36.8 °C 14 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
21 Jan after 36.7 °C 21 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
22 Jan after 35.6 °C 15 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
23 Jan after 35.8 °C 12 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
24 Jan after 35.7 °C 12 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
25 Jan after 35.8 °C 13 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
26 Jan after 35.2 °C 11 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
27 Jan after 34.3 °C 10 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
28 Jan after 34.7 °C 12 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
29 Jan after 36.8 °C 10 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 27 Dec 2025
After · 26 Jan 2026

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 11 January 2026 the air beside the fire reached 81 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 63: 4.2 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak81 µg/m³
Days over the guideline20 days
PM10283 µg/m³
Optical depth0.59
12345678910111213141516171819202122
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 · 113Every 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 Ngong fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 3 January 2026 and 19 January 2026: 17 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 4,911 hectares (49.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Ngong (4,941 ha, 1.9 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.7 °C, humidity dropped to 8 % and gusts hit 34 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 50, 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.

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

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?

We will only use your email to reply about this report. Privacy.

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.