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Bandafassi fire, 6 December 2022 Bandafassi

Out · last detection 16 Dec 2022, 14:31 UTC

The fire started on 6 December 2022 in Bandafassi, Senegal, and satellites saw it burning for 11 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,284 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 28th largest in Kédougou since 2016 (of 116 with a page). Number 16 in Senegal in 2022, of 90.

Burnt area
5,284ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
11days
6 Dec 2022 – 16 Dec 2022
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
6 Dec
2022
Heat detections
154
in a single hotspot: 94 MW
Danger at start
32
High · FWI index
Energy released
978MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

16 Dec 2022
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 6 Dec16 Dec

How it evolved, day by day

678910111213141516

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
36km/h · peak gust
17%lowest humidity

It had gone 47 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

66% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 203 ha in 2016, 1,778 ha in 2017, 570 ha in 2019, 146 ha in 2020, 1,897 ha in 2021. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 3,489 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Bandafassi where it started
    5,323 ha reached on 6 Dec
    0.9 %

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)
6 Dec 37.0 °C 27 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
7 Dec 38.6 °C 24 % 17 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
8 Dec 38.2 °C 26 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
9 Dec 37.0 °C 26 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
10 Dec 37.2 °C 28 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
11 Dec 37.1 °C 23 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
12 Dec 36.8 °C 20 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
13 Dec 36.5 °C 18 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
14 Dec 36.9 °C 17 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
15 Dec 36.8 °C 17 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
16 Dec 36.8 °C 19 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
17 Dec after 36.7 °C 20 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
18 Dec after 37.1 °C 16 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
19 Dec after 36.3 °C 19 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
20 Dec after 36.2 °C 16 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
21 Dec after 33.1 °C 18 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
22 Dec after 32.5 °C 18 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
23 Dec after 33.2 °C 18 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
24 Dec after 34.1 °C 23 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
25 Dec after 34.9 °C 18 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
26 Dec after 35.3 °C 21 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 29 Nov 2022
After · 23 Dec 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 · 154Every 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 6 December 2022 and 16 December 2022: 11 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 5,284 hectares (52.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Bandafassi (5,323 ha, 0.9 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 38.6 °C, humidity dropped to 17 % and gusts hit 36 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 44, class Very high.
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.