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Bandafassi fire, 11 January 2023 Bandafassi

Out · last detection 15 Jan 2023, 02:21 UTC

The fire started on 11 January 2023 in Bandafassi, Senegal, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,982 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 21th largest in Kédougou since 2016 (of 116 with a page). Number 6 in Senegal in 2023, of 83.

Burnt area
5,982ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
4days
11 Jan 2023 – 14 Jan 2023
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
11 Jan
2023
Heat detections
191
in a single hotspot: 79 MW
Danger at start
48
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
1.2GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

15 Jan 2023
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 11 Jan14 Jan

How it evolved, day by day

1112131415

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

The weather it burned in

37°high
38km/h · peak gust
16%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

92% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,795 ha in 2016, 1,304 ha in 2017, 823 ha in 2019, 3,193 ha in 2020, 2,718 ha in 2021, 2,853 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 5,531 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Bandafassi where it started
    6,021 ha reached on 11 Jan
    1.0 %

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)
11 Jan 35.7 °C 18 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
12 Jan 36.3 °C 17 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
13 Jan 36.8 °C 18 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
14 Jan 37.1 °C 16 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
15 Jan after 37.5 °C 16 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
16 Jan after 37.4 °C 14 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
17 Jan after 37.1 °C 14 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
18 Jan after 37.1 °C 15 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
19 Jan after 37.1 °C 14 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
20 Jan after 38.1 °C 16 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
21 Jan after 36.3 °C 18 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
22 Jan after 35.8 °C 19 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
23 Jan after 35.4 °C 22 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
24 Jan after 36.1 °C 25 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 4 Jan 2023
After · 21 Jan 2023

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 · 191Every 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 11 January 2023 and 14 January 2023: 4 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 5,982 hectares (59.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Bandafassi (6,021 ha, 1.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.1 °C, humidity dropped to 16 % and gusts hit 38 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 48, 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.