Skip to content
worldfires
SN · Senegal · →

Bogal fire, January 2019 Bona, Bogal

Out · last detection 22 Jan 2019, 03:23 UTC

The fire started on 19 January 2019 in Bogal, Senegal, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,848 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 27th largest in Sédhiou since 2016 (of 86 with a page). Number 17 in Senegal in 2019, of 57.

Burnt area
3,848ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
4days
19 Jan 2019 – 22 Jan 2019
Municipalities hit
2
districts
Started on
19 Jan
2019
Heat detections
109
in a single hotspot: 36 MW
Danger at start
47
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
1.2GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

22 Jan 2019
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 19 Jan22 Jan

How it evolved, day by day

19202122

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

The weather it burned in

32°high
43km/h · peak gust
16%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

28% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2 ha in 2016, 1,089 ha in 2018.

What happened to each town

  1. Bona
    2,199 ha reached on 16 Jan
    2.7 %
  2. Bogal where it started
    1,674 ha reached on 14 Jan
    1.3 %

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)
19 Jan 29.8 °C 25 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
20 Jan 31.5 °C 24 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
21 Jan 32.5 °C 19 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
22 Jan 31.0 °C 16 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
23 Jan after 31.6 °C 23 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
24 Jan after 33.6 °C 21 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
25 Jan after 33.7 °C 23 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
26 Jan after 34.8 °C 20 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
27 Jan after 35.8 °C 15 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
28 Jan after 34.9 °C 16 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
29 Jan after 34.9 °C 18 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
30 Jan after 34.5 °C 20 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
31 Jan after 33.7 °C 19 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
1 Feb after 35.1 °C 18 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 12 Jan 2019
After · 29 Jan 2019

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 · 109Every 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 Bogal fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 19 January 2019 and 22 January 2019: 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 3,848 hectares (38.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Bona (2,199 ha, 2.7 %); Bogal (1,674 ha, 1.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 32.5 °C, humidity dropped to 16 % and gusts hit 43 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 47, class Very 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.