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Basseknou fire, 28 March 2021 Basseknou

Out · last detection 2 Apr 2021, 01:21 UTC

The fire started on 28 March 2021 in Basseknou, Mauritania, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 8,929 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the largest fire in Hodh ech Chargui since 2016 (of 64 with a page). The largest in Mauritania in 2021, of 26.

Burnt area
8,929ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
5days
28 Mar 2021 – 1 Apr 2021
Municipalities hit
1
departments
Started on
28 Mar
2021
Heat detections
315
in a single hotspot: 125 MW
Danger at start
73
Very extreme · FWI index
Energy released
2.1GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

2 Apr 2021
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 28 Mar1 Apr

How it evolved, day by day

2829303112

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
44km/h · peak gust
5%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

What happened to each town

  1. Basseknou where it started
    8,985 ha reached on 28 Mar
    0.7 %

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)
28 Mar 38.2 °C 6 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 73
29 Mar 37.9 °C 6 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 77
30 Mar 37.7 °C 7 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 69
31 Mar 38.8 °C 6 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 70
1 Apr 39.3 °C 5 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 75
2 Apr after 40.0 °C 5 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 81
3 Apr after 39.3 °C 5 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 72
4 Apr after 40.2 °C 5 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 67
5 Apr after 41.2 °C 5 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 67
6 Apr after 39.8 °C 5 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 78
7 Apr after 40.0 °C 6 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 74
8 Apr after 41.2 °C 7 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 83
9 Apr after 41.5 °C 6 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 76
10 Apr after 43.0 °C 5 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 78
11 Apr after 42.6 °C 6 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 67

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 21 Mar 2021
After · 8 Apr 2021

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 · 315Every 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 Mauritania ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Basseknou fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 28 March 2021 and 1 April 2021: 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 8,929 hectares (89.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Basseknou (8,985 ha, 0.7 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 39.3 °C, humidity dropped to 5 % and gusts hit 44 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 77, class Very extreme.
Where does this data come from?
From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Mauritania (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.

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 ADM2 (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.