Salayea fire, March 2026 Zorzor, Salayea
The fire started on 7 March 2026 in Salayea, Liberia, and satellites saw it burning for 9 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 1,149 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 195th largest in Lofa since 2016 (of 253 with a page). Number 53 in Liberia in 2026, of 76.
The power measured by the satellite is low (13.3 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
- 1,149ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 9days
- 7 Mar 2026 – 15 Mar 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- districts
- Started on
- 7 Mar
- 2026
- Heat detections
- 17
- in a single hotspot: 13 MW
- Energy released
- 153MW
- 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
60% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 553 ha in 2020, 311 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 687 ha that had burned before.
What happened to each town
-
689 ha reached on 9 Mar0.2 %
-
Salayea where it started467 ha reached on 8 Mar0.4 %
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 7 March 2026 the air beside the fire reached 36 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 26: 1.7 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 · 17Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 4,951 haKoyamahMarch 2018 · 3 days · 23 km away
- 10,238 haZorzor6 March 2026 · 16 days · 25 km away
- 3,270 haZorzor27 February 2020 · 11 days · 28 km away
- 4,095 haZorzor19 February 2026 · 10 days · 29 km away
- 6,043 haZorzor24 February 2025 · 14 days · 35 km away
- 3,324 haZorzor7 March 2022 · 5 days · 37 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Salayea fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 7 March 2026 and 15 March 2026: 9 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 1,149 hectares (11.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Zorzor (689 ha, 0.2 %); Salayea (467 ha, 0.4 %).
- Where does this data come from?
- From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Liberia (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 (Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Intergovernmental Organisations (CC BY 3.0 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.