Bona fire, February 2023 Bona, Sindian
The fire started on 22 February 2023 in Bona, Senegal, and satellites saw it burning for 22 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 12,864 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 2th largest in Sédhiou since 2016 (of 86 with a page). Number 3 in Senegal in 2023, of 83.
Compare with…
Suggestions: Bona · 2022Bona · 2021Bona · 2018Bona · 2018
- Burnt area
- 12,864ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 22days
- 22 Feb 2023 – 15 Mar 2023
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- districts
- Started on
- 22 Feb
- 2023
- Heat detections
- 643
- in a single hotspot: 127 MW
- Danger at start
- 44
- Very high · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 538MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
82% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 770 ha in 2016, 364 ha in 2017, 4,704 ha in 2018, 410 ha in 2019, 4,257 ha in 2020, 2,412 ha in 2021, 7,467 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 10,542 ha that had burned before.
- 2,558 ha Bona fire, March 2022 4,919 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,768 ha Bona fire, February 2021 4,139 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,660 ha Bona fire, December 2018 2,811 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,394 ha Bona fire, January 2018 3,314 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,132 ha Bona fire, March 2022 2,991 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 330 ha Sindian fire, February 2022 2,572 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 79 ha Bona fire, February 2021 2,232 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
How big is it?
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Paris boundary: geoBoundaries · Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière (IGN-F) (Etalab Open License 2.0).
Madrid boundary: geoBoundaries · Open Data ESRI, IGN Central Registry of Cartography Area (CC BY 4.0).
Berlin boundary: geoBoundaries · Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy (dl-de/by-2-0).
This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.
What happened to each town
-
Bona where it started11,938 ha reached on 22 Feb15 %
-
1,006 ha reached on 22 Feb0.7 %
Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance runs from the point marking the centre of each area 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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 Mar | 38.3 °C | 20 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 2 Mar | 38.5 °C | 21 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 3 Mar | 37.8 °C | 18 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 4 Mar | 38.2 °C | 23 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 5 Mar | 37.7 °C | 24 % | 21 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 6 Mar | 36.1 °C | 26 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 7 Mar | 40.1 °C | 18 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 8 Mar | 41.1 °C | 13 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 62 |
| 9 Mar | 39.3 °C | 17 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 10 Mar | 40.0 °C | 16 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 11 Mar | 40.1 °C | 17 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 12 Mar | 40.1 °C | 16 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 13 Mar | 38.6 °C | 28 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 14 Mar | 39.3 °C | 20 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 15 Mar | 36.7 °C | 24 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 16 Mar after | 35.3 °C | 31 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 17 Mar after | 36.3 °C | 32 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 18 Mar after | 37.2 °C | 30 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 19 Mar after | 37.3 °C | 32 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 20 Mar after | 37.3 °C | 26 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 21 Mar after | 35.8 °C | 29 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 22 Mar after | 33.8 °C | 36 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
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 · CopernicusOn 10 March 2023 the air beside the fire reached 208 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 120: 8.0 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
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 · 643Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 25,642 haBonaFebruary 2026 · 20 days · 3 km away
- 7,769 haBonaJanuary 2026 · 7 days · 18 km away
- 12,988 haSindian8 February 2026 · 17 days · 24 km away
- 7,630 haKiang West16 January 2026 · 7 days · 31 km away
- 10,788 haKiang West9 February 2022 · 8 days · 33 km away
- 8,848 haDiaroumé23 February 2021 · 12 days · 40 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Bona fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 22 February 2023 to 15 March 2023 (22 days). The perimeter dates it from 1 March 2023 to 12 March 2023.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 12,864 hectares (128.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Bona (11,938 ha, 15 %); Sindian (1,006 ha, 0.7 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 41.1 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 41 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 62, 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 · Emergency number and official warnings ›
Satellite cross-check
History of this page Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
No changes since 24 October 2026.
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
How we know this
- Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery; 4 polygons grouped in this page.
- Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 1 March 2023 to 12 March 2023. 643 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
- We have not matched this page with any official record.
- Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
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.