Bandafassi fire, 4 February 2024 Bandafassi
The fire started on 4 February 2024 in Bandafassi, Senegal, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,038 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 40th largest in Kédougou since 2016 (of 116 with a page). Number 15 in Senegal in 2024, of 65.
The power measured by the satellite is low (21.4 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.
- Burnt area
- 4,038ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 5days
- 4 Feb 2024 – 8 Feb 2024
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- districts
- Started on
- 4 Feb
- 2024
- Heat detections
- 142
- in a single hotspot: 21 MW
- Danger at start
- 60
- Extreme · FWI index
- Energy released
- 791MW
- sum of detected power
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
95% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 738 ha in 2016, 805 ha in 2017, 1,584 ha in 2019, 2,480 ha in 2020, 1,450 ha in 2021, 1,120 ha in 2022, 1,106 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 3,838 ha that had burned before.
- 2,480 ha Bandafassi fire, February 2020 14,503 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,542 ha Bandafassi fire, February 2019 2,137 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,263 ha Bandafassi fire, February 2021 7,027 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,120 ha Bandafassi fire, April 2022 4,561 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 102 ha Bandafassi fire, January 2023 5,648 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 71 ha Bandafassi fire, January 2016 30,325 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 31 ha Bandafassi fire, February 2017 2,123 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 26 ha Bandafassi fire, January 2023 9,887 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
Bandafassi where it started4,066 ha reached on 4 Feb0.7 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4 Feb | 39.0 °C | 12 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 60 |
| 5 Feb | 39.8 °C | 13 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 59 |
| 6 Feb | 39.7 °C | 12 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 64 |
| 7 Feb | 39.7 °C | 9 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 63 |
| 8 Feb | 39.9 °C | 9 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 62 |
| 9 Feb after | 42.0 °C | 11 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 55 |
| 10 Feb after | 41.6 °C | 10 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 11 Feb after | 41.0 °C | 9 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 12 Feb after | 41.4 °C | 13 % | 21 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 13 Feb after | 42.4 °C | 12 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 14 Feb after | 43.5 °C | 9 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 57 |
| 15 Feb after | 43.2 °C | 7 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 63 |
| 16 Feb after | 42.9 °C | 10 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 63 |
| 17 Feb after | 40.6 °C | 14 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 55 |
| 18 Feb after | 40.9 °C | 21 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
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 · 142Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 25,335 haBandafassi8 February 2026 · 21 days · 12 km away
- 24,965 haMissira28 December 2024 · 7 days · 20 km away
- 34,293 haBandafassi12 January 2023 · 7 days · 25 km away
- 31,411 haBandafassi2 January 2020 · 19 days · 26 km away
- 21,620 haBandafassi17 January 2021 · 9 days · 28 km away
- 131,818 haMissira10 January 2026 · 50 days · 37 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Bandafassi fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 4 February 2024 and 8 February 2024: 5 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 4,038 hectares (40.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Bandafassi (4,066 ha, 0.7 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 39.9 °C, humidity dropped to 9 % and gusts hit 42 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 64, 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
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.