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Bogal fire, 22 January 2026 Bogal

Out · last detection 30 Jan 2026, 14:43 UTC

The fire started on 22 January 2026 in Bogal, Senegal, and satellites saw it burning for 9 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,174 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 12th largest in Sédhiou since 2016 (of 86 with a page). Number 24 in Senegal in 2026, of 126.

The power measured by the satellite is low (24.8 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Burnt area
6,174ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
9days
22 Jan 2026 – 30 Jan 2026
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
22 Jan
2026
Heat detections
107
in a single hotspot: 25 MW
Danger at start
37
High · FWI index
Energy released
581MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

30 Jan 2026
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 22 Jan30 Jan

How it evolved, day by day

23242627282930

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

The weather it burned in

37°high
42km/h · peak gust
20%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

73% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,633 ha in 2016, 832 ha in 2017, 224 ha in 2018, 602 ha in 2019, 968 ha in 2020, 1,558 ha in 2022, 1,765 ha in 2023, 757 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 4,512 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Bogal where it started
    6,212 ha reached on 19 Jan
    4.9 %

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)
22 Jan 30.8 °C 28 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
23 Jan 33.5 °C 28 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
24 Jan 33.5 °C 22 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
25 Jan 32.2 °C 29 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
26 Jan 34.2 °C 23 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
27 Jan 34.7 °C 21 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
28 Jan 35.6 °C 21 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
29 Jan 35.9 °C 21 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
30 Jan 36.7 °C 20 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
31 Jan after 36.7 °C 21 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
1 Feb after 36.1 °C 23 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
2 Feb after 35.5 °C 29 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
3 Feb after 36.1 °C 25 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
4 Feb after 34.1 °C 38 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
5 Feb after 33.0 °C 39 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
6 Feb after 32.2 °C 38 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
7 Feb after 36.4 °C 27 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
8 Feb after 36.2 °C 27 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
9 Feb after 37.5 °C 21 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 15 Jan 2026
After · 6 Feb 2026

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 27 January 2026 the air beside the fire reached 98 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 83: 5.5 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak98 µg/m³
Days over the guideline14 days
PM10318 µg/m³
Optical depth0.56
20212223242526272829303112
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 · 107Every 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 22 January 2026 and 30 January 2026: 9 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 6,174 hectares (61.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Bogal (6,212 ha, 4.9 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.7 °C, humidity dropped to 20 % and gusts hit 42 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 44, 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.

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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.