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SN · Senegal · →

Bona fire, January 2018 Bona

Out · last detection 27 Jan 2018, 02:32 UTC

The fire started on 24 January 2018 in Bona, Senegal, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,314 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 32th largest in Sédhiou since 2016 (of 86 with a page). Number 8 in Senegal in 2018, of 30.

Burnt area
3,314ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
4days
24 Jan 2018 – 27 Jan 2018
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
24 Jan
2018
Heat detections
96
in a single hotspot: 73 MW
Danger at start
44
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
792MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

27 Jan 2018
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 24 Jan27 Jan

How it evolved, day by day

24252627

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
39km/h · peak gust
14%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. Bona where it started
    3,334 ha reached on 23 Jan
    4.1 %

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)
24 Jan 37.0 °C 15 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
25 Jan 37.1 °C 14 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
26 Jan 36.4 °C 15 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
27 Jan 33.9 °C 16 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
28 Jan after 32.6 °C 18 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
29 Jan after 33.8 °C 20 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
30 Jan after 32.7 °C 18 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
31 Jan after 32.7 °C 17 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
1 Feb after 30.6 °C 20 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
2 Feb after 29.0 °C 21 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
3 Feb after 32.0 °C 20 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
4 Feb after 33.6 °C 21 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
5 Feb after 29.4 °C 28 % 33 km/h 0.9 mm High 33
6 Feb after 30.9 °C 23 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 37

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 17 Jan 2018
After · 3 Feb 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 · 96Every 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 Bona fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 24 January 2018 and 27 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 3,314 hectares (33.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Bona (3,334 ha, 4.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.1 °C, humidity dropped to 14 % and gusts hit 39 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.