Burned area
satellite only1,064ha
Perimeter published by GWIS (Copernicus).
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus)
- Date
- 11 Mar 2025 – 16 Mar 2025
+− cross-check
No official record is matched to this page to compare it with.
CM · Cameroon · –
Waza fire, 11 March 2025 Waza
Out · last detection 13 Mar 2025, 12:11 UTC
The fire started on 11 March 2025 in Waza, Cameroon, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 1,064 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 222th largest in Far North since 2016 (of 260 with a page). Number 138 in Cameroon in 2025, of 158.
The power measured by the satellite is low (26.7 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.
Use this data
Compare with…
Suggestions: Waza · 2023Logone-Birni · 2017Waza · 2020Waza · 2023
Use this data
Fire page data · version 2026-10-26matches 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 only6days
11 Mar 2025 to 16 Mar 2025: first and last day with fire on the page.
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
- Date
- last detection: 13 Mar 2025, 12:11 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 only11 Mar 2025
First day with fire seen by the satellites or the perimeter.
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
- Date
- 11 Mar 2025
+− cross-check
No official record is matched to this page, so the alert time and the cause are not known here.
Hotspots
satellite only22
VIIRS detections at 375 m. Most intense hotspot: 27 MW.
- Source
- NASA FIRMS · VIIRS (Suomi NPP)
- Date
- 11 Mar 2025 – 16 Mar 2025
+− 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 only219MW
Total radiative power on 11 March 2025; hotspots that day: 15.
- Source
- NASA FIRMS · VIIRS (FRP)
- Date
- 11 Mar 2025
+− 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
model106.3FWI · very extreme
Fire Weather Index (Canadian system) computed by WorldFires for the day the fire started. Consecutive days without rain before: 60.
- Source
- WorldFires calculation (Canadian FWI system)
- Date
- 11 Mar 2025, 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
model42.3°C · 4% RH
High of 42.3 °C and minimum humidity of 4% on 13 March 2025; gusts of 49 km/h on 11 March 2025.
- Source
- weather model at the fire’s grid cell
- Date
- 11 Mar 2025 – 16 Mar 2025
- 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.
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 weatherWeather and FWI computed from the ERA5 reanalysis
-
logLast day with fire: 13 March 2025 → 16 March 2025.
-
· reconstructed GHSLPopulation and built-up area computed
What was saved on 26 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
- 1,064 ha
- Dates
- 11 Mar 2025 – 16 Mar 2025
- Name
- Waza
- Official record
- —
Versioned permanent link
https://worldfires.org/en/fire/waza-2025-03-4?v=2026-10-26A 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 waza-2025-03-4.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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025-03-11 | 15 | 219 | 41.6 | 27.2 | 7 | 25.5 | 49 | 0 | 106.3 | muy_extremo | 1 |
| 2025-03-12 | 3 | 45 | 42.2 | 25 | 6 | 18.7 | 40.7 | 0 | 92 | muy_extremo | 1 |
| 2025-03-13 | 4 | 80 | 42.3 | 24.7 | 4 | 17.3 | 37.1 | 0 | 87 | muy_extremo | 1 |
| 2025-03-14 | 0 | 0 | 42.2 | 21.8 | 6 | 14 | 33.1 | 0 | 79.4 | muy_extremo | 1 |
| 2025-03-15 | 0 | 0 | 42 | 22.7 | 7 | 18.1 | 40 | 0 | 91.2 | muy_extremo | 1 |
| 2025-03-16 | 0 | 0 | 42.1 | 23.9 | 6 | 17.5 | 35.6 | 0 | 85 | muy_extremo | 1 |
| 2025-03-17 | 0 | 0 | 42.1 | 23.6 | 5 | 16.7 | 32.4 | 0 | 78.8 | muy_extremo | 0 |
| 2025-03-18 | 0 | 0 | 41.5 | 22.6 | 5 | 12.3 | 29.5 | 0 | 72.9 | muy_extremo | 0 |
| 2025-03-19 | 0 | 0 | 42.4 | 23.6 | 6 | 11.2 | 26.3 | 0 | 71.6 | muy_extremo | 0 |
| 2025-03-20 | 0 | 0 | 43.1 | 24.4 | 9 | 20.3 | 38.9 | 0 | 95.9 | muy_extremo | 0 |
| 2025-03-21 | 0 | 0 | 42.7 | 26.9 | 7 | 31 | 54.7 | 0 | 128.7 | muy_extremo | 0 |
| 2025-03-22 | 0 | 0 | 40.7 | 28.4 | 8 | 26.5 | 50.4 | 0 | 116.2 | muy_extremo | 0 |
| 2025-03-23 | 0 | 0 | 38.4 | 25 | 7 | 19.6 | 37.8 | 0 | 86.1 | muy_extremo | 0 |
| 2025-03-24 | 0 | 0 | 41.1 | 22.5 | 7 | 14.1 | 31.7 | 0 | 76.5 | muy_extremo | 0 |
| 2025-03-25 | 0 | 0 | 41.4 | 23.1 | 6 | 13.9 | 32.4 | 0 | 79.8 | muy_extremo | 0 |
| 2025-03-26 | 0 | 0 | 42.9 | 24 | 8 | 14.2 | 27.4 | 0 | 72.1 | muy_extremo | 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
- 1,064ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 6days
- 11 Mar 2025 – 16 Mar 2025
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- communes
- Started on
- 11 Mar
- 2025
- Heat detections
- 22
- in a single hotspot: 27 MW
- Danger at start
- 106
- Very extreme · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 115MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
HOTSPOTS BY DAY
11 Mar16 Mar
13 Mar 2025
How it evolved, day by day
11 Mar
12 Mar
13 Mar
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
42°high
49km/h · peak gust
4%lowest humidity
It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
43% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 16 ha in 2018, 277 ha in 2020, 107 ha in 2022, 367 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 462 ha that had burned before.
- 277 ha Waza fire, March 2020 1,422 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 207 ha Waza fire, March 2023 2,495 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 160 ha Waza fire, March 2023 1,281 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 107 ha Waza fire, February 2022 1,752 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 16 ha Waza fire, March 2018 1,526 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
-
Waza where it started1,070 ha reached on 11 Mar0.4 %
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 area< 0.1 ha
Residents< 20
Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (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)
Started with Very dry air: 32 % of the area in Cameroon 60 days without rain: 50 % of the area in Cameroon
| Day | High | Min. humidity | Peak gust | Rain | Danger (FWI) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 11 Mar | 41.6 °C | 7 % | 49 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 106 |
| 12 Mar | 42.2 °C | 6 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 92 |
| 13 Mar | 42.3 °C | 4 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 87 |
| 14 Mar | 42.2 °C | 6 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 79 |
| 15 Mar | 42.0 °C | 7 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 91 |
| 16 Mar | 42.1 °C | 6 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 85 |
| 17 Mar after | 42.1 °C | 5 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 79 |
| 18 Mar after | 41.5 °C | 5 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 73 |
| 19 Mar after | 42.4 °C | 6 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 72 |
| 20 Mar after | 43.1 °C | 9 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 96 |
| 21 Mar after | 42.7 °C | 7 % | 55 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 129 |
| 22 Mar after | 40.7 °C | 8 % | 50 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 116 |
| 23 Mar after | 38.4 °C | 7 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 86 |
| 24 Mar after | 41.1 °C | 7 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 76 |
| 25 Mar after | 41.4 °C | 6 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 80 |
| 26 Mar after | 42.9 °C | 8 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 72 |
Its twins: fires that started in the same weather
It started with an FWI of 106.3, a minimum humidity of 7% and more than two months without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 22.
FWI at the start
106.3
Minimum humidity
7 %
Days without rain
60+
this fire
chosen twins
rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar
Outlines of the closest twins
This fire · Waza fire, 11 March 2025
1,064 ha
6 days
FWI 106.3
Min. humidity 7 %
Waza fire, March 2023
2,495 ha
6 days
FWI 106.1
Min. humidity 8 %
3 km away, in 2023
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 1.1 mm on 21 Mar.
Logone-Birni fire, April 2017
1,480 ha
2 days
FWI 107.0
Min. humidity 6 %
70 km away, in 2017
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
Zina fire, February 2021
1,375 ha
4 days
FWI 111.1
Min. humidity 7 %
43 km away, in 2021
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
Kai-Kai fire, February 2021
1,467 ha
3 days
FWI 110.4
Min. humidity 7 %
80 km away, in 2021
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
Logone-Birni fire, April 2021
1,302 ha
4 days
FWI 101.2
Min. humidity 6 %
55 km away, in 2021
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
What happened to them
- 5 days
- median duration
- 1,292 ha
- median area
- 100 %
- went past 1,000 ha
- 1.2 mm
- rain at the end (median; 4 of 22 had it)
It burned an area similar to its twins (1,064 ha against a median of 1,292 ha) and lasted 6 days, against 5 days.
In 18 of 22, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 1.2 mm.
This is a bank of analogues: it shows what usually happens, not what will happen. With fewer than 15 twins we give no figures. How we calculate it
How it ended
—first rain
—no rain in ten days
49km/h · max. gust
It was considered over on 16 Mar, and not even 1 mm fell in the following ten days: it went out without rain. Twins with rain when they ended: 4 of 22, with a median of 1.2 mm.
Weather on this page: Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)
How a twin is chosen
- Same area: fires that have already ended, less than 250 km from this one, since 2016.
- Same start: we compare the FWI on the first day, the minimum humidity that day and the run of days without rain before it. The slider sets how much they may differ.
- Only pages with final weather data (ERA5 reanalysis) calculated in the same way as this fire’s; agricultural and grass burns and pages with data under review are left out.
- Fires burning at the same time as this one (a week before or after) are left out: they share the same spell of weather and do not count as a precedent.
- They are sorted by similarity, and the outlines of the first five are drawn.
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
↔
Before · 4 Mar 2025
After · 23 Mar 2025
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 16 March 2025 the air beside the fire reached 44 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 30: 2.0 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
PM2.5 peak44 µg/m³
Days over the guideline8 days
PM10269 µg/m³
Optical depth0.53
WHO 15
9 Mar11 Mar13 Mar15 Mar
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 · 22Every 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
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Waza fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 11 March 2025 to 16 March 2025 (6 days). The perimeter dates it from 11 March 2025 to 13 March 2025.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 1,064 hectares (10.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Waza (1,070 ha, 0.4 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 42.3 °C, humidity dropped to 4 % and gusts hit 49 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 106, class Very extreme.
- Where does this data come from?
- From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Cameroon (geoBoundaries). It is not an official report.
- How did the fires that started in similar weather in this area end?
- Fires less than 250 km away that started since 2016 with a similar FWI, humidity and dry spell: 22. Their median duration was 5 days and their median area 1,292 ha; 100 % went past 1,000 ha. In 18 of 22, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 1.2 mm.
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 · 1 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
- Last day with fire: 13 March 2025 → 16 March 2025.
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.
- Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 11 March 2025 to 13 March 2025. 22 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 (Open Data Commons Open Database License 1.0). 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.