Poli fire, 20 January 2020 Poli
The fire started on 20 January 2020 in Poli, Cameroon, and satellites saw it burning for 12 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 7,115 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 11th largest in North since 2016 (of 1648 with a page). Number 4 in Cameroon in 2020, of 268.
Compare with…
Suggestions: Poli · 2019Poli · 2016Poli · 2017Poli · 2016
- Burnt area
- 7,115ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 12days
- 20 Jan 2020 – 31 Jan 2020
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- communes
- Started on
- 20 Jan
- 2020
- Heat detections
- 198
- in a single hotspot: 235 MW
- Danger at start
- 40
- Very high · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 351MW
- 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 more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
68% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,240 ha in 2016, 1,504 ha in 2017, 2,101 ha in 2019. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 4,852 ha that had burned before.
- 2,008 ha Poli fire, February 2019 3,636 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 989 ha Poli fire, January 2016 1,350 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 753 ha Poli fire, January 2017 1,120 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 648 ha Poli fire, January 2016 1,166 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 567 ha Poli fire, December 2017 1,856 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 342 ha Poli fire, December 2016 26,671 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 177 ha Poli fire, December 2017 3,213 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 134 ha Poli fire, February 2016 2,459 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
-
Poli where it started7,154 ha reached on 20 Jan0.7 %
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 2020Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2020, 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.
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 21 Jan | 33.6 °C | 18 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 22 Jan | 33.2 °C | 15 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 23 Jan | 31.8 °C | 14 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 24 Jan | 31.2 °C | 13 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 25 Jan | 30.0 °C | 14 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 26 Jan | 31.6 °C | 14 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 27 Jan | 32.9 °C | 15 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 28 Jan | 33.9 °C | 15 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 29 Jan | 33.5 °C | 13 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 30 Jan | 32.1 °C | 13 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 31 Jan | 32.2 °C | 15 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 1 Feb after | 32.1 °C | 15 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 2 Feb after | 32.5 °C | 16 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 3 Feb after | 33.1 °C | 15 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 4 Feb after | 32.8 °C | 15 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 5 Feb after | 32.8 °C | 15 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 6 Feb after | 32.2 °C | 17 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
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.
Detections table · 198Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 6,218 haPoli26 January 2021 · 11 days · 10 km away
- 6,406 haPoli10 December 2019 · 14 days · 21 km away
- 26,671 haPoli3 December 2016 · 21 days · 23 km away
- 22,166 haTcholliré2 December 2017 · 14 days · 30 km away
- 9,667 haPoli3 January 2026 · 9 days · 38 km away
- 9,527 haPoli21 December 2019 · 31 days · 38 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Poli fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 20 January 2020 to 31 January 2020 (12 days). The perimeter dates it from 21 January 2020 to 27 January 2020.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 7,115 hectares (71.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Poli (7,154 ha, 0.7 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 33.6 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 39 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 43, 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
History of this page · 2 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
- Last day with fire: 27 January 2020 → 31 January 2020.
- Start date: 21 January 2020 → 20 January 2020.
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 21 January 2020 to 27 January 2020. 198 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 2020, 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 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.