How long did the Tchamba fire last?

According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 15 January 2026 to 30 January 2026 (16 days). The perimeter dates it from 20 January 2026 to 27 January 2026.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 2,810 hectares (28.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Tchamba (2,827 ha, 0.9 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 37.4 °C, humidity dropped to 10 % and gusts hit 32 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 52, class Extreme.

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.

TG · Togo · 2026-01-15 → 2026-01-30

Tchamba fire, 15 January 2026 Tchamba

Out · last detection 30 Jan 2026, 13:00 UTC

The fire started on 15 January 2026 in Tchamba, Togo, and satellites saw it burning for 16 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,810 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 12th largest in Centrale since 2016 (of 119 with a page). Number 10 in Togo in 2026, of 54.

The power measured by the satellite is low (26.4 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: 2,810ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 16days; 15 Jan 2026 – 30 Jan 2026
Municipalities hit: 1; prefectures
Started on: 15 Jan; 2026
Heat detections: 47; in a single hotspot: 26 MW
Danger at start: 36; High · FWI index
Energy released: 248MW; sum of detected power

Play back 30 Jan 2026

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 15 Jan30 Jan

How it evolved, day by day

15171820222324252630

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

The weather it burned in

37°high

32km/h · peak gust

10%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.6 mm on 1 Feb.

This area had burned before

3% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 10 ha in 2020, 68 ha in 2022, 3 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 72 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

Tchamba where it started

2,827 ha reached on 15 Jan

0.9 %

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)
15 Jan	35.6 °C	23 %	21 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
16 Jan	35.6 °C	23 %	20 km/h	0.0 mm	High 38
17 Jan	35.5 °C	25 %	20 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
18 Jan	35.9 °C	27 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
19 Jan	37.1 °C	26 %	16 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
20 Jan	36.7 °C	24 %	18 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
21 Jan	35.2 °C	20 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
22 Jan	35.0 °C	18 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
23 Jan	36.0 °C	17 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
24 Jan	36.7 °C	17 %	17 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
25 Jan	36.8 °C	12 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 49
26 Jan	36.7 °C	10 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 52
27 Jan	36.7 °C	17 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 50
28 Jan	36.3 °C	23 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44
29 Jan	36.1 °C	31 %	23 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
30 Jan	37.4 °C	19 %	23 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
31 Jan after	37.4 °C	30 %	19 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
1 Feb after	36.2 °C	37 %	23 km/h	1.6 mm	Moderate 20

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 8 Jan 2026

After · 6 Feb 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 January 2026 the air beside the fire reached 116 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 94: 6.2 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak116 µg/m³

Days over the guideline21 days

PM10538 µg/m³

Optical depth1.27

WHO 15

1314151617181920212223242526272829303112

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 · 47Every 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 Togo ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Tchamba fire last?: According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 15 January 2026 to 30 January 2026 (16 days). The perimeter dates it from 20 January 2026 to 27 January 2026.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 2,810 hectares (28.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Tchamba (2,827 ha, 0.9 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 37.4 °C, humidity dropped to 10 % and gusts hit 32 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 52, class Extreme.
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

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 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.

Where it burned