Skip to content
worldfires
ML · Mali · →

Dabo fire, October 2025 Dabo

Out · last detection 1 Nov 2025, 01:39 UTC

The fire started on 30 October 2025 in Dabo, Mali, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,347 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 15th largest in Koulikouro since 2016 (of 120 with a page). Number 67 in Mali in 2025, of 282.

Burnt area
4,347ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
3days
30 Oct 2025 – 1 Nov 2025
Municipalities hit
1
communes
Started on
30 Oct
2025
Heat detections
97
in a single hotspot: 153 MW
Danger at start
49
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
1.7GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

1 Nov 2025
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 30 Oct1 Nov

How it evolved, day by day

30311

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

The weather it burned in

40°high
26km/h · peak gust
14%lowest humidity

It had gone 16 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

33% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 714 ha in 2016, 591 ha in 2017, 146 ha in 2023.

What happened to each town

  1. Dabo where it started
    4,371 ha reached on 29 Oct
    3.1 %

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)
30 Oct 40.0 °C 14 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
31 Oct 39.3 °C 18 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
1 Nov 40.3 °C 15 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
2 Nov after 40.7 °C 7 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 65
3 Nov after 39.7 °C 10 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 64
4 Nov after 38.4 °C 18 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
5 Nov after 38.2 °C 16 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
6 Nov after 38.4 °C 15 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
7 Nov after 39.0 °C 13 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
8 Nov after 37.5 °C 20 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
9 Nov after 38.2 °C 20 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
10 Nov after 38.0 °C 21 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
11 Nov after 36.9 °C 23 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 23 Oct 2025
After · 8 Nov 2025

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 30 October 2025 the air beside the fire reached 75 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 48: 3.2 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak75 µg/m³
Days over the guideline5 days
PM1097 µg/m³
Optical depth0.34
282930311234
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 · 97Every 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 Mali ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Dabo fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 30 October 2025 and 1 November 2025: 3 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 4,347 hectares (43.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Dabo (4,371 ha, 3.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 40.3 °C, humidity dropped to 14 % and gusts hit 26 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 50, class Very high.
Where does this data come from?
From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Mali (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.

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.

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 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)). 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.