How long did the Soyah fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 18 February 2026 and 25 February 2026: 8 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 2,748 hectares (27.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Soyah (2,766 ha, 1.4 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 35.8 °C, humidity dropped to 15 % and gusts hit 30 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 42, 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 · 2026-02-18 → 2026-02-25

Soyah fire, 18 February 2026 Soyah

Out · last detection 24 Feb 2026, 13:33 UTC

The fire started on 18 February 2026 in Soyah, Guinea, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,748 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 31th largest in Mamou since 2016 (of 74 with a page). Number 128 in Guinea in 2026, of 269.

Burnt area: 2,748ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 8days; 18 Feb 2026 – 25 Feb 2026
Municipalities hit: 1; sub-prefectures
Started on: 18 Feb; 2026
Heat detections: 44; in a single hotspot: 56 MW
Danger at start: 39; Very high · FWI index
Energy released: 516MW; sum of detected power

Play back 24 Feb 2026

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 18 Feb25 Feb

How it evolved, day by day

182021222324

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

The weather it burned in

36°high

30km/h · peak gust

15%lowest humidity

It had gone 13 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

82% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,235 ha in 2017, 603 ha in 2019, 993 ha in 2020, 160 ha in 2021, 1,370 ha in 2022, 913 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,261 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

Soyah where it started

2,766 ha reached on 17 Feb

1.4 %

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.

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)
18 Feb	32.9 °C	21 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
19 Feb	34.9 °C	17 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 38
20 Feb	34.3 °C	18 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
21 Feb	34.7 °C	16 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
22 Feb	35.4 °C	15 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
23 Feb	35.8 °C	15 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
24 Feb	33.9 °C	20 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
25 Feb	34.5 °C	19 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
26 Feb after	33.4 °C	25 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
27 Feb after	33.7 °C	23 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 43
28 Feb after	31.9 °C	28 %	25 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
1 Mar after	30.3 °C	20 %	24 km/h	0.1 mm	High 35
2 Mar after	30.4 °C	28 %	23 km/h	0.1 mm	High 35
3 Mar after	34.5 °C	25 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
4 Mar after	34.5 °C	23 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 38
5 Mar after	35.3 °C	22 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
6 Mar after	34.9 °C	23 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
7 Mar after	35.9 °C	19 %	22 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.

↔

Before · 11 Feb 2026

After · 4 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 18 February 2026 the air beside the fire reached 98 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 78: 5.2 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak98 µg/m³

Days over the guideline13 days

PM10257 µg/m³

Optical depth0.87

WHO 15

16171819202122232425262728

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 · 44Every 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 18 February 2026 and 25 February 2026: 8 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 2,748 hectares (27.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Soyah (2,766 ha, 1.4 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 35.8 °C, humidity dropped to 15 % and gusts hit 30 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 42, 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