Burned area
satellite only9,313ha
Union of 4 GWIS (Copernicus) perimeters: overlapping areas count once.
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus)
- Date
- 12 Apr 2026 – 2 May 2026
+− cross-check
No official record is matched to this page to compare it with.
SL · Sierra Leone · –
Tonko Limba fire, 12 April 2026 Tonko Limba, Bramaia, Sanda Magbolont
Out · last detection 2 May 2026, 14:38 UTC
The fire started on 12 April 2026 in Tonko Limba, Sierra Leone, and satellites saw it burning for 21 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 9,313 hectares from heat detections, spread across 3 municipalities.
Number 3 in Sierra Leone in 2026, of 303.
GWIS near-real-time perimeter, from the layer that changed in August 2025: this fire is not compared with fires from earlier years, because since then the GWIS layer gives more and larger perimeters.
Use this data
Compare with…
Use this data
Fire page data · version 2026-10-24matches the official recordwith caveatssatellite onlymodel
When copying, the sentence is
Tick the figures you want: they make up the lede and the CSV.
Duration by satellite
satellite only21days
12 Apr 2026 to 2 May 2026: first and last day with fire on the page.
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
- Date
- last detection: 2 May 2026, 14:38 UTC
+− cross-check
Satellites pass a few times a day and cloud or smoke can hide the fire: a lack of detections is not an official extinction. Each country’s emergency service declares a fire contained or out.
Start
satellite only12 Apr 2026
First day with fire seen by the satellites or the perimeter.
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
- Date
- 12 Apr 2026
+− cross-check
No official record is matched to this page, so the alert time and the cause are not known here.
Hotspots
satellite only350
VIIRS detections at 375 m. Most intense hotspot: 357 MW.
- Source
- NASA FIRMS · VIIRS (Suomi NPP + NOAA-20)
- Date
- 12 Apr 2026 – 2 May 2026
+− cross-check
There is no official record to compare with. Each hotspot is a pixel detected in one satellite pass, not a separate fire.
The worst day
satellite only3,728MW
Total radiative power on 23 April 2026; hotspots that day: 58.
- Source
- NASA FIRMS · VIIRS (FRP)
- Date
- 23 Apr 2026
+− cross-check
Fire radiative power (FRP) measures the energy the fire gives off when the satellite passes. Added up by day, it compares intensity, not area.
Danger at the start
model33.6FWI · high
Fire Weather Index (Canadian system) computed by WorldFires for the day the fire started. Consecutive days without rain before: 28.
- Source
- WorldFires calculation (Canadian FWI system)
- Date
- 12 Apr 2026, local noon
- Model
- ERA5 0,25° (ECMWF · Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com
+− cross-check
This is an index computed from weather model data, not a measurement of the fire nor an official warning. Danger warnings are issued by each country’s authority. Emergency number and official warnings
Weather during the fire
model37.9°C · 37% RH
High of 37.9 °C and minimum humidity of 37% on 12 April 2026; gusts of 40 km/h on 22 April 2026.
- Source
- weather model at the fire’s grid cell
- Date
- 12 Apr 2026 – 2 May 2026
- Model
- ERA5 0,25° (ECMWF · Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com
+− cross-check
These are model values for a cell of about 25 km, not from a weather station: they may differ from what was measured on the ground.
Living inside
model≈ 6,400people
Estimated residents inside the perimeter and 18 ha of built-up area (100 m grid, epoch 2025).
- Source
- GHSL R2023A · JRC
- Date
- calculated on 24 October 2026
+− cross-check
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.
This page’s change log has been kept since 24 October 2026: every night what it publishes is compared and the difference is logged. Anything earlier is reconstructed from each source’s date and marked as reconstructed.
Show
-
· reconstructed GHSLPopulation and built-up area computed
-
· reconstructed weatherWeather and FWI computed from the ERA5 reanalysis
What was saved on 24 October 2026
Every night a snapshot of what the page shows is saved. If anything changes, it appears in the list as a log entry.
- Area
- 9,329 ha
- Dates
- 12 Apr 2026 – 2 May 2026
- Name
- Tonko Limba
- Official record
- —
Versioned permanent link
https://worldfires.org/en/fire/tonko-limba-2026-04-5?v=2026-10-24A version keeps the area, dates, name and official record; the area as it was logged (changes under 2% are not logged). The map, hotspots and weather always show today’s data.
Citation
A lede of about 60 words figures only, no adjectives
CSV for this fire tonko-limba-2026-04-5.csv · daily, no individual hotspots
| fecha | focos_viirs | frp_mw | tmax_c | tmin_c | hr_min_pct | viento_max_kmh | racha_max_kmh | precip_mm | fwi | clase_fwi | dentro_del_incendio |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026-04-12 | 2 | 4 | 37.9 | 24.2 | 37 | 15.9 | 37.8 | 0 | 33.6 | alto | 1 |
| 2026-04-13 | 1 | 4 | 37 | 24.2 | 28 | 17.5 | 36.4 | 0 | 40.5 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2026-04-14 | 2 | 8 | 35.3 | 23.4 | 43 | 13.3 | 34.6 | 0 | 32.8 | alto | 1 |
| 2026-04-15 | 10 | 416 | 37.4 | 24.6 | 36 | 13.7 | 29.2 | 0 | 33.3 | alto | 1 |
| 2026-04-16 | 70 | 3,111 | 36.3 | 26 | 39 | 15.4 | 37.8 | 0 | 35 | alto | 1 |
| 2026-04-17 | 2 | 13 | 35.6 | 25.8 | 31 | 13.5 | 37.1 | 0 | 34.7 | alto | 1 |
| 2026-04-18 | 63 | 3,097 | 36.3 | 23.9 | 33 | 17.5 | 37.8 | 0 | 38.4 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2026-04-19 | 4 | 12 | 36.1 | 23.9 | 32 | 16 | 35.3 | 0 | 37.3 | alto | 1 |
| 2026-04-20 | 19 | 690 | 35.6 | 25.7 | 38 | 14.7 | 37.8 | 0.4 | 36.4 | alto | 1 |
| 2026-04-21 | 3 | 33 | 36.4 | 25 | 34 | 16.9 | 37.8 | 0 | 38.6 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2026-04-22 | 7 | 45 | 36.3 | 25.1 | 37 | 15.5 | 40 | 0.1 | 37.5 | alto | 1 |
| 2026-04-23 | 58 | 3,728 | 35.5 | 24.9 | 33 | 17.6 | 39.6 | 0 | 39.7 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2026-04-24 | 0 | 0 | 33.9 | 23.4 | 39 | 18.3 | 38.5 | 0 | 39 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2026-04-25 | 37 | 1,150 | 36 | 23 | 36 | 16.7 | 35.3 | 0 | 37.7 | alto | 1 |
| 2026-04-26 | 22 | 356 | 33.9 | 23.3 | 41 | 15.9 | 38.2 | 0 | 35.7 | alto | 1 |
| 2026-04-27 | 0 | 0 | 34.6 | 23 | 42 | 16.6 | 34.6 | 0 | 36 | alto | 1 |
| 2026-04-28 | 11 | 557 | 36.4 | 22.6 | 30 | 17.5 | 36.4 | 0 | 39.7 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2026-04-29 | 2 | 10 | 35.7 | 22.3 | 27 | 15.5 | 37.1 | 0 | 39.6 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2026-04-30 | 0 | 0 | 37.1 | 22 | 34 | 13.5 | 25.9 | 0 | 37.9 | alto | 1 |
| 2026-05-01 | 0 | 0 | 37.3 | 25.3 | 32 | 16.8 | 38.5 | 0 | 41.3 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2026-05-02 | 37 | 1,561 | 35.7 | 24.3 | 42 | 17.3 | 38.9 | 0 | 37.7 | alto | 1 |
| 2026-05-03 | 0 | 0 | 34.2 | 25.6 | 53 | 16.2 | 37.1 | 0.1 | 30.1 | alto | 0 |
| 2026-05-04 | 0 | 0 | 36.5 | 25.1 | 42 | 14.9 | 32.8 | 0.4 | 30.5 | alto | 0 |
| 2026-05-05 | 0 | 0 | 34.6 | 25.2 | 46 | 17.2 | 36.4 | 0.2 | 32.5 | alto | 0 |
| 2026-05-06 | 0 | 0 | 34.4 | 25.6 | 45 | 17.3 | 41.4 | 0.6 | 29.4 | alto | 0 |
It is generated in your browser from this page’s data: one file per fire, aggregated by day and without individual hotspots.
Live widget for your story
It updates itself while the fire is still active and links to this page. Free, with the attribution shown at the bottom.
Sources for this page: GWIS (Copernicus), NASA FIRMS (VIIRS), ERA5 (ECMWF/Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0), GHSL (JRC). Open-Meteo.com · How we build fire pages: methodology
- Burnt area
- 9,313ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 21days
- 12 Apr 2026 – 2 May 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 3
- chiefdoms
- Started on
- 12 Apr
- 2026
- Heat detections
- 350
- in a single hotspot: 357 MW
- Danger at start
- 34
- High · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 870MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
HOTSPOTS BY DAY
12 Apr2 May
2 May 2026
How it evolved, day by day
12 Apr
16 Apr
20 Apr
23 Apr
2 May
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
38°high
40km/h · peak gust
28%lowest humidity
It had gone 28 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
58% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 523 ha in 2016, 3,041 ha in 2017, 1,092 ha in 2019, 183 ha in 2020, 443 ha in 2021, 943 ha in 2022, 1,256 ha in 2024, 423 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 5,448 ha that had burned before.
- 1,256 ha Tonko Limba fire, April 2024 1,746 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,037 ha Bramaia fire, April 2017 1,204 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 836 ha Tonko Limba fire, April 2017 1,925 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 695 ha Bramaia fire, April 2019 1,288 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 681 ha Tonko Limba fire, April 2017 1,360 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 673 ha Tonko Limba fire, April 2022 1,479 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 523 ha Bramaia fire, April 2016 1,830 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 480 ha Tonko Limba fire, April 2017 1,039 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
-
Tonko Limba where it started5,381 ha reached on 12 Apr6.0 %
-
3,540 ha reached on 13 Apr6.6 %
-
9 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 2025Built-up area18 ha
Residents≈ 6,400
Inside the perimeter there were about 18 hectares of built-up land and about 6,400 residents (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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 12 Apr | 37.9 °C | 37 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 13 Apr | 37.0 °C | 28 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 14 Apr | 35.3 °C | 43 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 15 Apr | 37.4 °C | 36 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 16 Apr | 36.3 °C | 39 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 17 Apr | 35.6 °C | 31 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 18 Apr | 36.3 °C | 33 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 19 Apr | 36.1 °C | 32 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 20 Apr | 35.6 °C | 38 % | 38 km/h | 0.4 mm | High 36 |
| 21 Apr | 36.4 °C | 34 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 22 Apr | 36.3 °C | 37 % | 40 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 38 |
| 23 Apr | 35.5 °C | 33 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 24 Apr | 33.9 °C | 39 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 25 Apr | 36.0 °C | 36 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 26 Apr | 33.9 °C | 41 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 27 Apr | 34.6 °C | 42 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 28 Apr | 36.4 °C | 30 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 29 Apr | 35.7 °C | 27 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 30 Apr | 37.1 °C | 34 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 1 May | 37.3 °C | 32 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 2 May | 35.7 °C | 42 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 3 May after | 34.2 °C | 53 % | 37 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 30 |
| 4 May after | 36.5 °C | 42 % | 33 km/h | 0.4 mm | High 30 |
| 5 May after | 34.6 °C | 46 % | 36 km/h | 0.2 mm | High 32 |
| 6 May after | 34.4 °C | 45 % | 41 km/h | 0.6 mm | High 29 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
↔
Before · 5 Apr 2026
After · 9 May 2026
Sentinel-2 did not pass over on that day. Try another date, or use false colour, which is daily.
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 4 May 2026 the air beside the fire reached 95 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 45: 3.0 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
PM2.5 peak95 µg/m³
Days over the guideline24 days
PM10148 µg/m³
Optical depth0.90
WHO 15
10 Apr16 Apr22 Apr28 Apr4 May
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 · 350Every 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
- 3,637 haBramaia26 April 2016 · 10 days · 14 km away
- 4,408 haTonko Limba23 April 2022 · 9 days · 17 km away
- 4,216 haKaliahMarch 2021 · 15 days · 25 km away
- 5,988 haMoussayah14 April 2017 · 14 days · 27 km away
- 4,890 haBramaia15 January 2026 · 18 days · 27 km away
- 4,270 haMoussayahApril 2024 · 15 days · 28 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Tonko Limba fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 12 April 2026 to 2 May 2026 (21 days). The perimeter dates it from 12 April 2026 to 26 April 2026.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 9,313 hectares (93.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 3 municipalities: Tonko Limba (5,381 ha, 6.0 %); Bramaia (3,540 ha, 6.6 %); Sanda Magbolont (9 ha, 0.0 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 37.9 °C, humidity dropped to 28 % and gusts hit 40 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 40, class Very high.
- Where does this data come from?
- From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Sierra Leone (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 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
No changes since 24 October 2026.
RSS Changes to this page With cross-checks and a citable version
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; 4 polygons grouped in this page.
- Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 12 April 2026 to 26 April 2026. 350 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 ADM3 (Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 (CC BY 4.0)). 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.