Sotouboua fire, 3 December 2025 Sotouboua, Bassar, Tchaoudjo
The fire started on 3 December 2025 in Sotouboua, Togo, and satellites saw it burning for 32 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 36,837 hectares from heat detections, spread across 4 municipalities.
It is the largest fire in Centrale since 2016 (of 119 with a page). The largest in Togo in 2025, of 39.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 36,837ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 32days
- 3 Dec 2025 – 3 Jan 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 4
- prefectures
- Started on
- 3 Dec
- 2025
- Heat detections
- 1,213
- in a single hotspot: 0 MW
- Danger at start
- 27
- High · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 386MW
- 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 24 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
81% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 10,826 ha in 2016, 6,011 ha in 2017, 3,228 ha in 2018, 6,687 ha in 2019, 8,035 ha in 2020, 9,513 ha in 2021, 7,903 ha in 2022, 3,636 ha in 2023, 5,481 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 29,678 ha that had burned before.
- 5,201 ha Bassar fire, December 2016 6,703 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,780 ha Sotouboua fire, November 2022 3,101 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,457 ha Sotouboua fire, December 2021 3,745 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,202 ha Sotouboua fire, December 2018 2,627 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,066 ha Bassar fire, December 2021 4,783 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,986 ha Sotouboua fire, December 2022 4,570 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,715 ha Bassar fire, December 2024 2,036 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,591 ha Bassar fire, December 2021 3,236 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
-
Sotouboua where it started20,660 ha6.4 %
-
15,963 ha4.8 %
-
412 ha0.2 %
-
44 ha0.0 %
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 2025Inside the perimeter there were about 0.11 hectares of built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2025, 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. The GHSL 2025 epoch is a projection made from 2020 and earlier data.
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3 Dec | 36.6 °C | 32 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 4 Dec | 35.0 °C | 39 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 5 Dec | 36.2 °C | 26 % | 19 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 6 Dec | 36.0 °C | 25 % | 21 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 7 Dec | 35.2 °C | 36 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 8 Dec | 36.2 °C | 30 % | 19 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 9 Dec | 35.4 °C | 36 % | 17 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 10 Dec | 35.2 °C | 35 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 11 Dec | 34.8 °C | 33 % | 17 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 12 Dec | 35.7 °C | 36 % | 17 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 13 Dec | 34.0 °C | 41 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 14 Dec | 35.4 °C | 42 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 15 Dec | 32.7 °C | 50 % | 33 km/h | 0.2 mm | High 24 |
| 16 Dec | 35.3 °C | 23 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 17 Dec | 35.0 °C | 22 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 18 Dec | 34.0 °C | 34 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 19 Dec | 34.8 °C | 29 % | 19 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 20 Dec | 35.5 °C | 25 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 21 Dec | 35.2 °C | 21 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 22 Dec | 35.2 °C | 30 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 23 Dec | 36.4 °C | 27 % | 16 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 24 Dec | 35.6 °C | 38 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 25 Dec | 35.5 °C | 39 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 26 Dec | 36.6 °C | 31 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 27 Dec | 36.4 °C | 34 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 28 Dec | 36.7 °C | 30 % | 21 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 29 Dec | 36.9 °C | 35 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 30 Dec | 36.2 °C | 33 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 31 Dec | 37.1 °C | 31 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 1 Jan | 36.5 °C | 29 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 2 Jan | 37.2 °C | 29 % | 19 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 3 Jan | 36.4 °C | 33 % | 21 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 4 Jan after | 36.1 °C | 35 % | 18 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 5 Jan after | 37.6 °C | 24 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 6 Jan after | 37.0 °C | 26 % | 17 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 7 Jan after | 35.3 °C | 39 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 8 Jan after | 34.7 °C | 37 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 9 Jan after | 36.6 °C | 26 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 10 Jan after | 36.2 °C | 25 % | 21 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 11 Jan after | 35.0 °C | 18 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 12 Jan after | 35.7 °C | 22 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 13 Jan after | 36.4 °C | 19 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
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 16 December 2025 the air beside the fire reached 96 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 64: 4.3 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 · 0Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 6,703 haBassar15 December 2016 · 17 days · 6 km away
- 4,783 haBassar10 December 2021 · 18 days · 10 km away
- 3,101 haSotouboua23 November 2022 · 9 days · 11 km away
- 3,236 haBassar17 December 2021 · 17 days · 14 km away
- 3,563 haSotouboua12 December 2021 · 20 days · 15 km away
- 4,570 haSotouboua6 December 2022 · 15 days · 18 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Sotouboua fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 3 December 2025 and 3 January 2026: 32 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 36,837 hectares (368.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 4 municipalities: Sotouboua (20,660 ha, 6.4 %); Bassar (15,963 ha, 4.8 %); Tchaoudjo (412 ha, 0.2 %); Plaine de Mô (44 ha, 0.0 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 37.2 °C, humidity dropped to 21 % and gusts hit 33 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 36, class High.
- Where does this data come from?
- From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Togo (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: 10 January 2026 → 3 January 2026.
- Start date: 26 November 2025 → 3 December 2025.
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; 14 polygons grouped in this page.
- Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. No 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 2025, 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 ADM2 (Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0). 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.