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Bandafassi fire, February 2020 Bandafassi

Out · last detection 9 Feb 2020, 02:00 UTC

The fire started on 3 February 2020 in Bandafassi, Senegal, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 14,503 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 7th largest in Kédougou since 2016 (of 116 with a page). Number 2 in Senegal in 2020, of 73.

Burnt area
14,503ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
7days
3 Feb 2020 – 9 Feb 2020
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
3 Feb
2020
Heat detections
534
in a single hotspot: 97 MW
Danger at start
51
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
4.3GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

9 Feb 2020
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 3 Feb9 Feb

How it evolved, day by day

3456789

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
45km/h · peak gust
7%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

34% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,390 ha in 2016, 1,728 ha in 2017, 2,889 ha in 2019. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 4,869 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Bandafassi where it started
    14,604 ha reached on 31 Jan
    2.5 %

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)
3 Feb 39.1 °C 13 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
4 Feb 38.6 °C 8 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 65
5 Feb 38.4 °C 8 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 65
6 Feb 38.4 °C 8 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
7 Feb 38.2 °C 9 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 64
8 Feb 37.9 °C 9 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 67
9 Feb 37.6 °C 7 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 65
10 Feb after 37.9 °C 9 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 67
11 Feb after 38.2 °C 13 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
12 Feb after 37.6 °C 10 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 65
13 Feb after 38.2 °C 10 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 67
14 Feb after 39.4 °C 9 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 67
15 Feb after 39.3 °C 9 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 66
16 Feb after 40.7 °C 10 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
17 Feb after 40.7 °C 9 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 63
18 Feb after 40.5 °C 9 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
19 Feb after 40.9 °C 7 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 27 Jan 2020
After · 16 Feb 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 · 534Every 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 3 February 2020 and 9 February 2020: 7 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 14,503 hectares (145.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Bandafassi (14,604 ha, 2.5 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 39.1 °C, humidity dropped to 7 % and gusts hit 45 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 67, 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.