Poli fire, April 2021 Poli
The fire started on 4 April 2021 in Poli, Cameroon, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 1,422 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 746th largest in North since 2016 (of 1648 with a page). Number 136 in Cameroon in 2021, of 293.
The power measured by the satellite is low (17.1 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
- 1,422ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 3days
- 4 Apr 2021 – 6 Apr 2021
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- communes
- Started on
- 4 Apr
- 2021
- Heat detections
- 40
- in a single hotspot: 17 MW
- Energy released
- 189MW
- 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: 1,807 ha in 2016, 36 ha in 2017, 585 ha in 2019. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,341 ha that had burned before.
- 1,011 ha Poli fire, January 2016 2,159 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 796 ha Poli fire, December 2016 26,671 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 585 ha Poli fire, February 2019 1,475 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 36 ha Tcholliré fire, December 2017 22,166 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
Poli where it started1,430 ha reached on 4 Apr0.1 %
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.
Detections table · 40Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 26,671 haPoli10 December 2016 · 13 days · 7 km away
- 6,406 haPoli12 December 2019 · 8 days · 8 km away
- 22,166 haTcholliré2 December 2017 · 14 days · 16 km away
- 6,218 haPoli28 January 2021 · 8 days · 17 km away
- 6,762 haTcholliré9 December 2021 · 4 days · 20 km away
- 6,034 haTcholliré8 December 2025 · 6 days · 23 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Poli fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 4 April 2021 and 6 April 2021: 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 1,422 hectares (14.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Poli (1,430 ha, 0.1 %).
- 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
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.