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Bandafassi fire, 17 January 2022 Bandafassi

Out · last detection 24 Jan 2022, 14:43 UTC

The fire started on 17 January 2022 in Bandafassi, Senegal, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 8,496 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 17th largest in Kédougou since 2016 (of 116 with a page). Number 7 in Senegal in 2022, of 90.

Burnt area
8,496ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
8days
17 Jan 2022 – 24 Jan 2022
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
17 Jan
2022
Heat detections
249
in a single hotspot: 93 MW
Danger at start
56
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
1.7GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

24 Jan 2022
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 17 Jan24 Jan

How it evolved, day by day

18192021222324

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
44km/h · peak gust
10%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

82% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 3,386 ha in 2016, 3,643 ha in 2017, 418 ha in 2018, 147 ha in 2019, 3,350 ha in 2020, 4,115 ha in 2021. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 6,980 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Bandafassi where it started
    8,552 ha reached on 18 Jan
    1.5 %

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)
17 Jan 37.8 °C 16 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
18 Jan 38.4 °C 11 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
19 Jan 38.4 °C 10 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
20 Jan 38.4 °C 11 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
21 Jan 38.2 °C 10 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
22 Jan 37.2 °C 13 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
23 Jan 37.0 °C 12 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 65
24 Jan 36.1 °C 10 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 65
25 Jan after 36.1 °C 11 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 65
26 Jan after 37.3 °C 8 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 63
27 Jan after 38.0 °C 12 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
28 Jan after 37.6 °C 11 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
29 Jan after 39.2 °C 10 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
30 Jan after 41.0 °C 10 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 63
31 Jan after 40.3 °C 10 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
1 Feb after 39.4 °C 9 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 73
2 Feb after 38.3 °C 7 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 71
3 Feb after 37.7 °C 9 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 63

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 10 Jan 2022
After · 31 Jan 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.

Detections table · 249Every 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 17 January 2022 and 24 January 2022: 8 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 8,496 hectares (85.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Bandafassi (8,552 ha, 1.5 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 38.4 °C, humidity dropped to 10 % and gusts hit 44 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 65, 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.