Pobè fire, March 2026 Pobè
The fire started on 12 March 2026 in Pobè, Benin, and satellites saw it burning for 13 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 1,701 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
Number 47 in Benin in 2026, of 99.
- Burnt area
- 1,701ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 13days
- 12 Mar 2026 – 24 Mar 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- communes
- Started on
- 12 Mar
- 2026
- Heat detections
- 21
- in a single hotspot: 54 MW
- Energy released
- 276MW
- 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
No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.
What happened to each town
-
Pobè where it started1,712 ha reached on 13 Mar4.0 %
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 13 March 2026 the air beside the fire reached 24 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 16: 1.1 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
- 1,660 haPobèMarch 2022 · 7 days · 5 km away
- 1,169 haAdja-OuèrèFebruary 2020 · 20 days · 9 km away
- 2,816 haYewa NorthFebruary 2026 · 8 days · 13 km away
- 2,079 haYewa NorthDecember 2022 · 4 days · 16 km away
- 3,355 haYewa NorthFebruary 2024 · 5 days · 17 km away
- 2,689 haYewa NorthJanuary 2025 · 8 days · 17 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Pobè fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 12 March 2026 to 24 March 2026 (13 days). The perimeter dates it from 12 March 2026 to 17 March 2026.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 1,701 hectares (17.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Pobè (1,712 ha, 4.0 %).
- Where does this data come from?
- From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Benin (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 (Public Domain). 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.