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Bellé fire, January 2018 Bellé

Out · last detection 9 Jan 2018, 03:09 UTC

The fire started on 6 January 2018 in Bellé, Senegal, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,063 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 107th largest in Tambacounda since 2016 (of 291 with a page). Number 11 in Senegal in 2018, of 30.

Burnt area
3,063ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
4days
6 Jan 2018 – 9 Jan 2018
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
6 Jan
2018
Heat detections
82
in a single hotspot: 130 MW
Danger at start
48
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
597MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

9 Jan 2018
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 6 Jan9 Jan

How it evolved, day by day

6789

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
40km/h · peak gust
12%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. Bellé where it started
    3,080 ha reached on 6 Jan
    1.6 %

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)
6 Jan 34.8 °C 13 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
7 Jan 33.9 °C 15 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
8 Jan 33.7 °C 12 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
9 Jan 32.7 °C 19 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
10 Jan after 33.1 °C 17 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
11 Jan after 34.2 °C 15 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
12 Jan after 35.1 °C 12 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
13 Jan after 36.0 °C 10 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
14 Jan after 35.7 °C 11 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
15 Jan after 36.6 °C 14 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
16 Jan after 34.1 °C 13 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
17 Jan after 29.6 °C 21 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
18 Jan after 30.5 °C 19 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
19 Jan after 32.7 °C 17 % 37 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.

Before · 30 Dec 2017
After · 16 Jan 2018

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 · 82Every 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 Bellé fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 6 January 2018 and 9 January 2018: 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 3,063 hectares (30.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Bellé (3,080 ha, 1.6 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 34.8 °C, humidity dropped to 12 % and gusts hit 40 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 53, 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
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.