Bandafassi fire, 28 December 2019 Bandafassi, Missira
The fire started on 28 December 2019 in Bandafassi, Senegal, and satellites saw it burning for 25 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 31,411 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 3th largest in Kédougou since 2016 (of 116 with a page). The largest in Senegal in 2019, of 58.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 31,411ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 25days
- 28 Dec 2019 – 21 Jan 2020
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- districts
- Started on
- 28 Dec
- 2019
- Heat detections
- 1,012
- in a single hotspot: 51 MW
- Danger at start
- 44
- Very high · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 191MW
- 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
76% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 16,256 ha in 2016, 14,221 ha in 2017, 3,109 ha in 2018, 3,257 ha in 2019. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 23,955 ha that had burned before.
- 9,855 ha Bandafassi fire, January 2016 30,325 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 7,399 ha Bandafassi fire, March 2017 8,828 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 3,578 ha Bandafassi fire, January 2016 5,382 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,161 ha Bandafassi fire, January 2018 2,424 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,252 ha Bandafassi fire, January 2019 2,187 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 639 ha Bandafassi fire, January 2017 2,788 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 106 ha Bandafassi fire, December 2017 2,551 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 67 ha Missira fire, March 2017 5,522 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
-
Bandafassi where it started31,392 ha reached on 28 Dec5.4 %
-
232 ha reached on 17 Jan0.0 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 28 Dec | 35.9 °C | 22 % | 19 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 29 Dec | 35.8 °C | 15 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 30 Dec | 36.1 °C | 15 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 31 Dec | 35.2 °C | 14 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 58 |
| 1 Jan | 33.9 °C | 15 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 58 |
| 2 Jan | 33.3 °C | 16 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 57 |
| 3 Jan | 32.7 °C | 18 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 58 |
| 4 Jan | 32.4 °C | 16 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 58 |
| 5 Jan | 32.7 °C | 14 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 56 |
| 6 Jan | 32.6 °C | 14 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 55 |
| 7 Jan | 33.0 °C | 14 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 55 |
| 8 Jan | 33.7 °C | 15 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 9 Jan | 33.0 °C | 15 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 10 Jan | 33.1 °C | 14 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 58 |
| 11 Jan | 35.1 °C | 15 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 58 |
| 12 Jan | 35.4 °C | 12 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 13 Jan | 35.3 °C | 13 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 56 |
| 14 Jan | 34.6 °C | 14 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 60 |
| 15 Jan | 34.8 °C | 13 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 16 Jan | 35.8 °C | 11 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 56 |
| 17 Jan | 35.4 °C | 13 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 58 |
| 18 Jan | 35.4 °C | 16 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 61 |
| 19 Jan | 36.6 °C | 16 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 59 |
| 20 Jan | 37.1 °C | 19 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 21 Jan | 36.8 °C | 18 % | 17 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 22 Jan after | 36.2 °C | 18 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 23 Jan after | 33.6 °C | 18 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 24 Jan after | 38.6 °C | 16 % | 53 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 66 |
| 25 Jan after | 38.6 °C | 11 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 59 |
| 26 Jan after | 39.1 °C | 8 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 56 |
| 27 Jan after | 40.1 °C | 7 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 64 |
| 28 Jan after | 38.8 °C | 11 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 56 |
| 29 Jan after | 38.8 °C | 10 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 56 |
| 30 Jan after | 38.1 °C | 8 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 70 |
| 31 Jan after | 40.2 °C | 10 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 64 |
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.
Detections table · 1,012Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 34,293 haBandafassi12 January 2023 · 10 days · 0 km away
- 32,881 haBandafassi14 January 2025 · 20 days · 15 km away
- 30,325 haBandafassi23 January 2016 · 22 days · 15 km away
- 131,818 haMissira9 January 2026 · 51 days · 17 km away
- 24,965 haMissira28 December 2024 · 7 days · 18 km away
- 25,335 haBandafassi8 February 2026 · 21 days · 35 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Bandafassi fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 28 December 2019 to 21 January 2020 (25 days). The perimeter dates it from 2 January 2020 to 20 January 2020.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 31,411 hectares (314.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Bandafassi (31,392 ha, 5.4 %); Missira (232 ha, 0.0 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 37.1 °C, humidity dropped to 11 % and gusts hit 44 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 61, class Extreme.
- 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.
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 2 January 2020 to 20 January 2020. 1,012 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.
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.