How long did the Soyah fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 14 February 2026 and 27 February 2026: 14 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 4,883 hectares (48.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Soyah (4,915 ha, 2.5 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 35.0 °C, humidity dropped to 11 % and gusts hit 44 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 48, class Very high.

Where does this data come from?

From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Guinea (geoBoundaries). It is not an official report.

GN · Guinea · 2026-02-14 → 2026-02-27

Soyah fire, 14 February 2026 Soyah

Out · last detection 27 Feb 2026, 14:17 UTC

The fire started on 14 February 2026 in Soyah, Guinea, and satellites saw it burning for 14 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,883 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 6th largest in Mamou since 2016 (of 74 with a page). Number 43 in Guinea in 2026, of 269.

Burnt area: 4,883ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 14days; 14 Feb 2026 – 27 Feb 2026
Municipalities hit: 1; sub-prefectures
Started on: 14 Feb; 2026
Heat detections: 123; in a single hotspot: 57 MW
Danger at start: 38; Very high · FWI index
Energy released: 941MW; sum of detected power

Play back 27 Feb 2026

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 14 Feb27 Feb

How it evolved, day by day

1415161718192021222324252627

Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.

The weather it burned in

35°high

44km/h · peak gust

11%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

15% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 678 ha in 2019, 350 ha in 2023, 233 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 712 ha that had burned before.

678 ha Soyah fire, March 2019 2,454 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire

What happened to each town

Soyah where it started

4,915 ha reached on 9 Feb

2.5 %

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.

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)
14 Feb	32.8 °C	26 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 38
15 Feb	34.7 °C	15 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	High 38
16 Feb	34.1 °C	14 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 48
17 Feb	34.3 °C	11 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 45
18 Feb	32.6 °C	17 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
19 Feb	34.2 °C	14 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 43
20 Feb	33.9 °C	15 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 43
21 Feb	34.0 °C	15 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 46
22 Feb	34.8 °C	12 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 46
23 Feb	35.0 °C	13 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44
24 Feb	33.5 °C	17 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44
25 Feb	34.3 °C	15 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 45
26 Feb	32.8 °C	25 %	25 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
27 Feb	33.5 °C	22 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 45
28 Feb after	31.8 °C	26 %	22 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
1 Mar after	29.7 °C	19 %	24 km/h	0.1 mm	High 37
2 Mar after	29.5 °C	27 %	21 km/h	0.4 mm	High 36
3 Mar after	33.9 °C	24 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
4 Mar after	34.1 °C	21 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
5 Mar after	34.9 °C	20 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
6 Mar after	34.6 °C	22 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
7 Mar after	35.3 °C	18 %	20 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 38
8 Mar after	35.1 °C	25 %	23 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
9 Mar after	35.0 °C	28 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42

Before and after, from space

Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.

↔

Before · 7 Feb 2026

After · 6 Mar 2026

Before After

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 · Copernicus

On 17 February 2026 the air beside the fire reached 72 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 55: 3.7 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak72 µg/m³

Days over the guideline19 days

PM10238 µg/m³

Optical depth0.71

WHO 15

121314151617181920212223242526272812

Good Fair Moderate Poor Very poor Extremely poor

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 · 123Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.

⬇ Download CSV Times in UTC. Each detection is a 375 m pixel: a large fire yields hundreds per pass.

Date and time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Guinea ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Soyah fire last?: GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 14 February 2026 and 27 February 2026: 14 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 4,883 hectares (48.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Soyah (4,915 ha, 2.5 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 35.0 °C, humidity dropped to 11 % and gusts hit 44 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 48, class Very high.
Where does this data come from?: From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Guinea (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

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

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.

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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 (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.

Where it burned