Pirada fire, 5 March 2026 Pirada
The fire started on 5 March 2026 in Pirada, Guinea-Bissau, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 1,021 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 148th largest in Gabú since 2016 (of 162 with a page). Number 72 in Guinea-Bissau in 2026, of 75.
The power measured by the satellite is low (16.8 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.
- Burnt area
- 1,021ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 3days
- 5 Mar 2026 – 7 Mar 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- sectors
- Started on
- 5 Mar
- 2026
- Heat detections
- 15
- in a single hotspot: 17 MW
- Energy released
- 112MW
- sum of detected power
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.
This area had burned before
94% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 228 ha in 2017, 816 ha in 2022, 494 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 955 ha that had burned before.
- 816 ha Pirada fire, February 2022 1,399 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 494 ha Pirada fire, January 2024 1,242 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 228 ha Pirada fire, February 2017 2,102 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
Pirada where it started954 ha reached on 5 Mar1.0 %
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.
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 3 March 2026 the air beside the fire reached 82 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 74: 4.9 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 · 15Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Pirada fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 5 March 2026 and 7 March 2026: 3 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 1,021 hectares (10.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Pirada (954 ha, 1.0 %).
- Where does this data come from?
- From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Guinea-Bissau (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
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 ADM2 (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.