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BF · Burkina Faso · →

Arbinda fire, 1 November 2025 Arbinda

Out · last detection 3 Nov 2025, 01:01 UTC

The fire started on 1 November 2025 in Arbinda, Burkina Faso, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,154 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 18th largest in Soum since 2016 (of 134 with a page). Number 78 in Burkina Faso in 2025, of 609.

Burnt area
4,154ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
3days
1 Nov 2025 – 3 Nov 2025
Municipalities hit
1
communes
Started on
1 Nov
2025
Heat detections
65
in a single hotspot: 64 MW
Danger at start
59
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
780MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

3 Nov 2025
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 1 Nov3 Nov

How it evolved, day by day

23

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

The weather it burned in

39°high
34km/h · peak gust
6%lowest humidity

It had gone 25 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

23% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 210 ha in 2021, 834 ha in 2023, 359 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 955 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Arbinda where it started
    4,178 ha reached on 2 Nov
    1.5 %

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)
1 Nov 39.3 °C 7 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
2 Nov 39.0 °C 6 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 63
3 Nov 38.3 °C 7 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
4 Nov after 38.3 °C 14 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
5 Nov after 38.4 °C 10 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
6 Nov after 39.1 °C 11 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
7 Nov after 38.7 °C 19 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
8 Nov after 36.7 °C 24 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
9 Nov after 38.4 °C 13 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
10 Nov after 38.2 °C 6 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
11 Nov after 38.5 °C 7 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
12 Nov after 38.5 °C 5 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 63
13 Nov after 38.5 °C 3 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 25 Oct 2025
After · 10 Nov 2025

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 31 October 2025 the air beside the fire reached 62 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 42: 2.8 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak62 µg/m³
Days over the guideline6 days
PM10108 µg/m³
Optical depth0.47
3031123456
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 · 65Every 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 timeSatelliteFRP (MW)LatLon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Burkina Faso ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Arbinda fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 1 November 2025 and 3 November 2025: 3 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 4,154 hectares (41.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Arbinda (4,178 ha, 1.5 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 39.3 °C, humidity dropped to 6 % and gusts hit 34 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 63, class Extreme.
Where does this data come from?
From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Burkina Faso (OCHA COD-AB). 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.

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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 OCHA COD-AB (Institut Geographique Burkina (IGB)) (Creative Commons Attribution for Intergovernmental Organisations (CC BY-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.