Thionthian fire, 12 April 2026 Thionthian
The fire started on 12 April 2026 in Thionthian, Guinea, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,155 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 209th largest in Kindia since 2016 (of 242 with a page). Number 227 in Guinea in 2026, of 269.
- Burnt area
- 2,155ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 7days
- 12 Apr 2026 – 18 Apr 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- sub-prefectures
- Started on
- 12 Apr
- 2026
- Heat detections
- 57
- in a single hotspot: 79 MW
- Energy released
- 1.4GW
- 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
97% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 666 ha in 2016, 485 ha in 2017, 1,148 ha in 2018, 724 ha in 2019, 1,180 ha in 2022, 126 ha in 2024, 273 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,092 ha that had burned before.
- 1,148 ha Thionthian fire, April 2018 3,598 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 666 ha Thionthian fire, April 2016 9,116 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 295 ha Thionthian fire, April 2017 3,630 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 188 ha Thionthian fire, April 2017 3,609 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 126 ha Thionthian fire, April 2024 2,076 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2 ha Sogolon fire, April 2017 9,219 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
Thionthian where it started2,168 ha reached on 12 Apr3.4 %
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 21 April 2026 the air beside the fire reached 108 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 66: 4.4 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 · 57Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 9,116 haThionthian9 April 2016 · 11 days · 4 km away
- 9,219 haSogolon11 April 2017 · 10 days · 11 km away
- 9,669 haSogolonApril 2026 · 21 days · 16 km away
- 14,183 haKonsotami19 April 2018 · 14 days · 22 km away
- 11,473 haTondon14 April 2016 · 17 days · 34 km away
- 10,531 haKonsotami19 April 2018 · 8 days · 35 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Thionthian fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 12 April 2026 and 18 April 2026: 7 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 2,155 hectares (21.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Thionthian (2,168 ha, 3.4 %).
- 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
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 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.