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Bandafassi fire, 4 January 2020 Bandafassi

Out · last detection 12 Jan 2020, 13:33 UTC

The fire started on 4 January 2020 in Bandafassi, Senegal, and satellites saw it burning for 9 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 13,117 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 8th largest in Kédougou since 2016 (of 116 with a page). Number 3 in Senegal in 2020, of 73.

The power measured by the satellite is low (22.0 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Burnt area
13,117ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
9days
4 Jan 2020 – 12 Jan 2020
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
4 Jan
2020
Heat detections
360
in a single hotspot: 22 MW
Danger at start
56
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
1.3GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

12 Jan 2020
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 4 Jan12 Jan

How it evolved, day by day

456789101112

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

The weather it burned in

36°high
44km/h · peak gust
12%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

87% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 7,779 ha in 2016, 7,677 ha in 2017, 1,635 ha in 2018, 36 ha in 2019. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 11,466 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Bandafassi where it started
    13,206 ha reached on 4 Jan
    2.3 %

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)
4 Jan 32.5 °C 16 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
5 Jan 32.8 °C 14 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
6 Jan 32.7 °C 14 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
7 Jan 33.1 °C 14 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
8 Jan 33.8 °C 15 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
9 Jan 33.1 °C 15 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
10 Jan 33.2 °C 14 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
11 Jan 35.2 °C 15 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
12 Jan 35.5 °C 12 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
13 Jan after 35.4 °C 13 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
14 Jan after 34.7 °C 14 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
15 Jan after 34.9 °C 13 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
16 Jan after 35.9 °C 11 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
17 Jan after 35.5 °C 13 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
18 Jan after 35.5 °C 16 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
19 Jan after 36.7 °C 16 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
20 Jan after 37.2 °C 19 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
21 Jan after 36.9 °C 18 % 17 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
22 Jan after 36.3 °C 18 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 28 Dec 2019
After · 19 Jan 2020

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 · 360Every 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 Bandafassi fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 4 January 2020 and 12 January 2020: 9 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 13,117 hectares (131.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Bandafassi (13,206 ha, 2.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 35.5 °C, humidity dropped to 12 % and gusts hit 44 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 56, 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

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.

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.

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.