Bandafassi fire, 8 February 2026 Bandafassi, Missira
The fire started on 8 February 2026 in Bandafassi, Senegal, and satellites saw it burning for 21 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 25,335 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 5th largest in Kédougou since 2016 (of 116 with a page). Number 3 in Senegal in 2026, of 126.
- Burnt area
- 25,335ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 21days
- 8 Feb 2026 – 28 Feb 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- districts
- Started on
- 8 Feb
- 2026
- Heat detections
- 605
- in a single hotspot: 69 MW
- Danger at start
- 47
- Very high · FWI index
- Energy released
- 5.2GW
- 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
86% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,948 ha in 2016, 3,081 ha in 2017, 350 ha in 2018, 3,987 ha in 2019, 9,451 ha in 2020, 6,103 ha in 2021, 6,939 ha in 2022, 2,820 ha in 2023, 10,437 ha in 2024, 5,974 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 21,668 ha that had burned before.
- 7,375 ha Bandafassi fire, February 2020 14,503 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 4,369 ha Bandafassi fire, February 2021 7,027 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 3,368 ha Bandafassi fire, December 2022 8,731 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,623 ha Bandafassi fire, February 2024 4,038 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,239 ha Bandafassi fire, April 2022 4,561 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,913 ha Bandafassi fire, December 2024 4,420 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,788 ha Bandafassi fire, February 2024 3,899 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,768 ha Bandafassi fire, December 2020 4,972 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
Bandafassi where it started25,501 ha reached on 8 Feb4.4 %
-
6 ha0.0 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 8 Feb | 37.9 °C | 18 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 9 Feb | 38.1 °C | 15 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 10 Feb | 38.3 °C | 12 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 11 Feb | 39.2 °C | 15 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 12 Feb | 39.8 °C | 13 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 13 Feb | 40.8 °C | 13 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 50 |
| 14 Feb | 38.8 °C | 14 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 15 Feb | 39.1 °C | 11 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 16 Feb | 38.0 °C | 12 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 58 |
| 17 Feb | 38.1 °C | 7 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 63 |
| 18 Feb | 38.1 °C | 13 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 60 |
| 19 Feb | 39.4 °C | 11 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 59 |
| 20 Feb | 39.2 °C | 14 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 21 Feb | 39.0 °C | 15 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 22 Feb | 39.9 °C | 12 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 60 |
| 23 Feb | 38.8 °C | 13 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 58 |
| 24 Feb | 38.1 °C | 16 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 55 |
| 25 Feb | 38.9 °C | 15 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 26 Feb | 39.0 °C | 16 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 27 Feb | 37.3 °C | 15 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 28 Feb | 33.4 °C | 21 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 1 Mar after | 34.3 °C | 15 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 2 Mar after | 34.6 °C | 19 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 3 Mar after | 36.2 °C | 17 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 4 Mar after | 37.0 °C | 16 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 5 Mar after | 38.2 °C | 16 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 6 Mar after | 38.7 °C | 16 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 7 Mar after | 39.4 °C | 17 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 8 Mar after | 40.8 °C | 16 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 9 Mar after | 41.0 °C | 16 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 10 Mar after | 41.2 °C | 18 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
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.
The smoke
CAMS · CopernicusOn 12 February 2026 the air beside the fire reached 148 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 91: 6.1 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
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 · 605Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Bandafassi fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 8 February 2026 and 28 February 2026: 21 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 25,335 hectares (253.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Bandafassi (25,501 ha, 4.4 %); Missira (6 ha, 0.0 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 40.8 °C, humidity dropped to 7 % and gusts hit 39 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 63, 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.
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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.