Skip to content
worldfires
SN · Senegal · →

Bandafassi fire, 3 December 2025 Bandafassi

Out · last detection 10 Dec 2025, 13:57 UTC

The fire started on 3 December 2025 in Bandafassi, Senegal, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,686 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 76th largest in Kédougou since 2016 (of 116 with a page). Number 65 in Senegal in 2025, of 112.

Burnt area
2,686ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
7days
3 Dec 2025 – 9 Dec 2025
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
3 Dec
2025
Heat detections
45
in a single hotspot: 88 MW
Danger at start
30
High · FWI index
Energy released
727MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

10 Dec 2025
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 3 Dec9 Dec

How it evolved, day by day

47910

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

The weather it burned in

35°high
34km/h · peak gust
21%lowest humidity

It had gone 25 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

44% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 10 ha in 2021, 1,173 ha in 2024.

What happened to each town

  1. Bandafassi where it started
    2,703 ha reached on 4 Dec
    0.5 %

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)
3 Dec 31.8 °C 31 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
4 Dec 32.4 °C 23 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
5 Dec 31.7 °C 22 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
6 Dec 34.7 °C 24 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
7 Dec 30.8 °C 21 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
8 Dec 33.1 °C 22 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
9 Dec 33.9 °C 24 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
10 Dec after 35.1 °C 24 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
11 Dec after 33.7 °C 26 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
12 Dec after 32.8 °C 26 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
13 Dec after 30.5 °C 29 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
14 Dec after 27.7 °C 27 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
15 Dec after 28.6 °C 29 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
16 Dec after 28.6 °C 38 % 33 km/h 0.1 mm High 29
17 Dec after 30.2 °C 29 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
18 Dec after 28.7 °C 31 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
19 Dec after 30.7 °C 31 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 32

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 26 Nov 2025
After · 16 Dec 2025

If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.

The smoke

CAMS · Copernicus

On 8 December 2025 the air beside the fire reached 99 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 62: 4.1 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak99 µg/m³
Days over the guideline12 days
PM10267 µg/m³
Optical depth0.63
123456789101112
Good Fair Moderate Poor Very poor Extremely poor

Particles from the Copernicus CAMS model at the centre of the perimeter; these are not measurements in each town. The pale bar is the worst hour, the solid one the daily average.

Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS)

Detections table · 45Every 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 3 December 2025 and 9 December 2025: 7 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 2,686 hectares (26.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Bandafassi (2,703 ha, 0.5 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 34.7 °C, humidity dropped to 21 % and gusts hit 34 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 35, class 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.