Bandafassi fire, 11 January 2022 Bandafassi, Missira
The fire started on 11 January 2022 in Bandafassi, Senegal, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,517 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 50th largest in Kédougou since 2016 (of 116 with a page). Number 33 in Senegal in 2022, of 90.
The power measured by the satellite is low (24.0 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 3,517ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 3days
- 11 Jan 2022 – 13 Jan 2022
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- districts
- Started on
- 11 Jan
- 2022
- Heat detections
- 80
- in a single hotspot: 24 MW
- Danger at start
- 56
- Extreme · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 135MW
- 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
100% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,637 ha in 2016, 2,997 ha in 2017, 1,880 ha in 2019, 1,902 ha in 2020, 2,731 ha in 2021. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 3,534 ha that had burned before.
- 2,731 ha Bandafassi fire, January 2021 21,620 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,637 ha Bandafassi fire, January 2016 30,325 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,892 ha Bandafassi fire, January 2020 31,411 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,402 ha Bandafassi fire, March 2017 8,828 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,113 ha Bandafassi fire, December 2017 2,551 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 10 ha Bandafassi fire, January 2020 13,117 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 started3,534 ha reached on 11 Jan0.6 %
-
8 ha reached on 12 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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 11 Jan | 37.6 °C | 8 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 56 |
| 12 Jan | 39.2 °C | 9 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 13 Jan | 37.9 °C | 21 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 14 Jan after | 39.2 °C | 16 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 15 Jan after | 37.9 °C | 18 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 16 Jan after | 36.4 °C | 18 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 17 Jan after | 38.0 °C | 16 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 56 |
| 18 Jan after | 38.6 °C | 11 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 61 |
| 19 Jan after | 38.6 °C | 10 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 63 |
| 20 Jan after | 38.6 °C | 12 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 58 |
| 21 Jan after | 38.4 °C | 10 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 62 |
| 22 Jan after | 37.4 °C | 13 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 63 |
| 23 Jan after | 37.2 °C | 12 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 65 |
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 · 80Every 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 · 7 days · 7 km away
- 31,411 haBandafassi2 January 2020 · 19 days · 7 km away
- 131,818 haMissira10 January 2026 · 50 days · 11 km away
- 24,965 haMissira28 December 2024 · 7 days · 14 km away
- 32,881 haBandafassi18 January 2025 · 16 days · 16 km away
- 30,325 haBandafassi23 January 2016 · 19 days · 18 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Bandafassi fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 11 January 2022 and 13 January 2022: 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 3,517 hectares (35.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Bandafassi (3,534 ha, 0.6 %); Missira (8 ha, 0.0 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 39.2 °C, humidity dropped to 8 % and gusts hit 32 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 · 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.
- Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 80 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.