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Bala fire, October 2022 Bala, Dianké Makan

Out · last detection 11 Nov 2022, 13:47 UTC

The fire started on 29 October 2022 in Bala, Senegal, and satellites saw it burning for 14 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,472 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 81th largest in Tambacounda since 2016 (of 291 with a page). Number 34 in Senegal in 2022, of 90.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Bala · 2025Bala · 2026Bala · 2017Koulor · 2022

Burnt area
3,472ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
14days
29 Oct 2022 – 11 Nov 2022
Municipalities hit
2
districts
Started on
29 Oct
2022
Heat detections
127
in a single hotspot: 82 MW
Danger at start
32
High · FWI index
Average daily power
136MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 29 Oct11 Nov
11 Nov 2022

How it evolved, day by day

30 Oct 2022 · 35 MW · 4 2 Nov 2022 · 17 MW · 3 3 Nov 2022 · 86 MW · 10 4 Nov 2022 · 14 MW · 3 6 Nov 2022 · 688 MW · 51 7 Nov 2022 · 57 MW · 17 8 Nov 2022 · 10 MW · 2 9 Nov 2022 · 342 MW · 27 10 Nov 2022 · 45 MW · 5 11 Nov 2022 · 63 MW · 5
30 Oct 3 Nov 6 Nov 8 Nov 10 Nov

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
35km/h · peak gust
17%lowest humidity

It had gone 9 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

30% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 838 ha in 2017, 192 ha in 2020.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 2.2% of the area of London (35 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each town

  1. Bala where it started
    3,434 ha reached on 30 Oct
    1.2 %
  2. Dianké Makan
    61 ha reached on 9 Nov
    0.0 %

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.

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)
3 Nov 38.0 °C 19 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
4 Nov 38.0 °C 17 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
5 Nov 37.5 °C 20 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
6 Nov 37.4 °C 22 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
7 Nov 37.7 °C 22 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
8 Nov 36.9 °C 30 % 17 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
9 Nov 38.4 °C 18 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
10 Nov 36.8 °C 20 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
11 Nov 36.6 °C 19 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
12 Nov after 35.9 °C 22 % 16 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
13 Nov after 37.2 °C 24 % 17 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
14 Nov after 35.6 °C 29 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
15 Nov after 34.9 °C 44 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
16 Nov after 36.2 °C 39 % 22 km/h 0.1 mm High 24
17 Nov after 37.5 °C 21 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
18 Nov after 35.8 °C 19 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
19 Nov after 35.7 °C 15 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
20 Nov after 36.6 °C 18 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 22 Oct 2022
After · 18 Nov 2022

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 2 November 2022 the air beside the fire reached 244 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 156: 10 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak244 µg/m³
Days over the guideline13 days
PM10496 µg/m³
Optical depth1.60
12345678910111213
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 · 127Every 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 Senegal ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Bala fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 29 October 2022 to 11 November 2022 (14 days). The perimeter dates it from 3 November 2022 to 10 November 2022.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 3,472 hectares (34.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Bala (3,434 ha, 1.2 %); Dianké Makan (61 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 38.4 °C, humidity dropped to 17 % and gusts hit 35 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 34, class High.
Where does this data come from?
From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Senegal (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.

Emergency number: 18 · Emergency number and official warnings ›

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

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
What do you think is wrong?

We will only use your email to reply about this report. Privacy. This is not an emergency service: if there is a fire now, call 18.

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 3 November 2022 to 10 November 2022. 127 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.

How we build fire pages: methodology ›

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.