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SN · Senegal · →

Bona fire, December 2018 Bona

Out · last detection 30 Dec 2018, 15:02 UTC

The fire started on 26 December 2018 in Bona, Senegal, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,811 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 46th largest in Sédhiou since 2016 (of 86 with a page). Number 13 in Senegal in 2018, of 30.

Burnt area
2,811ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
5days
26 Dec 2018 – 30 Dec 2018
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
26 Dec
2018
Heat detections
73
in a single hotspot: 64 MW
Danger at start
37
High · FWI index
Energy released
747MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

30 Dec 2018
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 26 Dec30 Dec

How it evolved, day by day

2627282930

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

The weather it burned in

34°high
32km/h · peak gust
17%lowest humidity

It had gone 53 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

9% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 140 ha in 2016, 190 ha in 2017. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 241 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Bona where it started
    2,829 ha reached on 26 Dec
    3.5 %

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)
26 Dec 32.8 °C 20 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
27 Dec 33.5 °C 18 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
28 Dec 33.3 °C 17 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
29 Dec 32.4 °C 23 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
30 Dec 33.7 °C 25 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
31 Dec after 34.6 °C 26 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
1 Jan after 35.7 °C 28 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
2 Jan after 35.1 °C 26 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
3 Jan after 33.9 °C 20 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
4 Jan after 30.1 °C 25 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
5 Jan after 33.5 °C 21 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
6 Jan after 31.8 °C 25 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
7 Jan after 29.2 °C 28 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
8 Jan after 34.2 °C 22 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
9 Jan after 34.4 °C 21 % 25 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 · 19 Dec 2018
After · 6 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 · 73Every 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 26 December 2018 and 30 December 2018: 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 2,811 hectares (28.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Bona (2,829 ha, 3.5 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 33.7 °C, humidity dropped to 17 % and gusts hit 32 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 40, 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.