Pama fire, October 2026 Pama
The fire started on 22 October 2026 in Pama, Burkina Faso, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 1,061 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 477th largest in Goulmou since 2016 (of 529 with a page). Number 164 in Burkina Faso in 2026, of 191.
The power measured by the satellite is low (29.5 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.
Compare with…
Suggestions: Pama · 2024Madjoari · 2017Pama · 2019Pama · 2025
Is it still active?
No detections since 24 Oct 2026, 14:03 UTC. That usually means no flame is visible from space any more, although hotspots may remain. 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.
- Burnt area
- 1,061ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 3days
- 22 Oct 2026 – 24 Oct 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- communes
- Started on
- 22 Oct
- 2026
- Heat detections
- 21
- in a single hotspot: 30 MW
- Danger at start
- 29
- High · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 98MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone 2 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
91% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 772 ha in 2017, 321 ha in 2019, 54 ha in 2023, 827 ha in 2024, 71 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 965 ha that had burned before.
- 827 ha Pama fire, November 2024 43,278 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 772 ha Madjoari fire, November 2017 39,204 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 318 ha Pama fire, November 2019 2,071 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 71 ha Pama fire, November 2025 56,922 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 54 ha Pama fire, November 2023 2,500 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 3 ha Pama fire, November 2019 1,490 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
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
-
Pama where it started1,069 ha reached on 22 Oct0.2 %
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 2025Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 22 Oct | 38.7 °C | 18 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 23 Oct | 38.7 °C | 14 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 24 Oct | 38.0 °C | 19 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
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 · CopernicusOn 23 October 2026 the air beside the fire reached 57 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 44: 2.9 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
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 · 21Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 43,278 haPama12 November 2024 · 20 days · 10 km away
- 16,698 haPama14 December 2020 · 18 days · 13 km away
- 9,106 haPama9 November 2017 · 7 days · 20 km away
- 9,283 haPama30 November 2021 · 13 days · 21 km away
- 39,204 haMadjoari9 November 2017 · 13 days · 22 km away
- 13,536 haPama16 November 2016 · 4 days · 26 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Pama fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 22 October 2026 to 24 October 2026 (3 days). The perimeter dates it from 22 October 2026 to 23 October 2026.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 1,061 hectares (10.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Pama (1,069 ha, 0.2 %).
- Is the Pama fire still active?
- No fire detections since 24 Oct 2026, 14:03 UTC. A lack of detections is not an official extinction.
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 38.7 °C, humidity dropped to 14 % and gusts hit 35 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 33, class High.
- Where does this data come from?
- From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Burkina Faso (OCHA COD-AB). 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 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
No changes since 24 October 2026.
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 adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 22 October 2026 to 23 October 2026. 21 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.
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 OCHA COD-AB (Institut Geographique Burkina (IGB)) (Creative Commons Attribution for Intergovernmental Organisations (CC BY-IGO)). 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.