Zina fire, 9 February 2025 Zina, Maga
The fire started on 9 February 2025 in Zina, Cameroon, and satellites saw it burning for 29 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,726 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 18th largest in Far North since 2016 (of 343 with a page). Number 54 in Cameroon in 2025, of 396.
Compare with…
Suggestions: Zina · 2024Zina · 2020Zina · 2020Zina · 2016
- Burnt area
- 3,726ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 29days
- 9 Feb 2025 – 9 Mar 2025
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- communes
- Started on
- 9 Feb
- 2025
- Heat detections
- 185
- in a single hotspot: 59 MW
- Danger at start
- 58
- Extreme · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 62MW
- detected power per day, on average
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.
The weather it burned in
It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
96% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 798 ha in 2016, 1,609 ha in 2017, 6 ha in 2019, 3,404 ha in 2020, 3 ha in 2021, 1,840 ha in 2022, 33 ha in 2023, 2,298 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 3,563 ha that had burned before.
- 1,094 ha Zina fire, February 2024 1,058 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,057 ha Zina fire, February 2020 1,196 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 949 ha Zina fire, April 2020 1,333 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 798 ha Zina fire, February 2016 1,473 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 797 ha Zina fire, January 2017 1,502 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 779 ha Zina fire, May 2020 1,388 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 770 ha Zina fire, January 2022 1,509 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 677 ha Zina fire, February 2022 1,037 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
-
Zina where it started3,692 ha reached on 9 Feb3.3 %
-
56 ha reached on 26 Feb0.0 %
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 2025Inside the perimeter there were about 1.8 hectares of built-up land and about 300 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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 16 Feb | 35.9 °C | 7 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 58 |
| 17 Feb | 36.8 °C | 8 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 57 |
| 18 Feb | 37.2 °C | 6 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 56 |
| 19 Feb | 38.2 °C | 4 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 56 |
| 20 Feb | 39.3 °C | 6 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 62 |
| 21 Feb | 39.9 °C | 5 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 55 |
| 22 Feb | 40.2 °C | 5 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 58 |
| 23 Feb | 39.9 °C | 10 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 62 |
| 24 Feb | 40.4 °C | 9 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 63 |
| 25 Feb | 40.1 °C | 8 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 62 |
| 26 Feb | 36.2 °C | 11 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 61 |
| 27 Feb | 36.3 °C | 9 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 63 |
| 28 Feb | 38.4 °C | 7 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 62 |
| 1 Mar | 40.4 °C | 9 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 62 |
| 2 Mar | 41.1 °C | 11 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 63 |
| 3 Mar | 41.4 °C | 8 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 65 |
| 4 Mar | 41.2 °C | 7 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 64 |
| 5 Mar | 40.4 °C | 6 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 69 |
| 6 Mar | 39.6 °C | 6 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 66 |
| 7 Mar | 39.4 °C | 8 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 66 |
| 8 Mar | 40.6 °C | 6 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 65 |
| 9 Mar | 41.9 °C | 8 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 66 |
| 10 Mar after | 41.9 °C | 10 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 68 |
| 11 Mar after | 41.6 °C | 6 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 80 |
| 12 Mar after | 42.1 °C | 5 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 68 |
| 13 Mar after | 42.2 °C | 3 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 69 |
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 26 February 2025 the air beside the fire reached 164 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 100: 6.7 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 · 185Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Zina fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 9 February 2025 to 9 March 2025 (29 days). The perimeter dates it from 16 February 2025 to 3 March 2025.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 3,726 hectares (37.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Zina (3,692 ha, 3.3 %); Maga (56 ha, 0.0 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 41.4 °C, humidity dropped to 4 % and gusts hit 35 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 65, class 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.
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 · 2 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
- Last day with fire: 3 March 2025 → 9 March 2025.
- Start date: 16 February 2025 → 9 February 2025.
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; 3 polygons grouped in this page.
- Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 16 February 2025 to 3 March 2025. 185 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.