Skip to content
worldfires
SN · Senegal · –

Diaroumé fire, April 2019 Diaroumé, Bogal

Out · last detection 15 Apr 2019, 02:25 UTC

The fire started on 11 April 2019 in Diaroumé, Senegal, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,879 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 31th largest in Sédhiou since 2016 (of 62 with a page). Number 26 in Senegal in 2019, of 57.

Compare with…
Burnt area
2,879ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
6days
11 Apr 2019 – 16 Apr 2019
Municipalities hit
2
districts
Started on
11 Apr
2019
Heat detections
99
in a single hotspot: 62 MW
Danger at start
62
Extreme · FWI index
Average daily power
238MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 11 Apr16 Apr
15 Apr 2019

How it evolved, day by day

11 Apr 2019 · 503 MW · 17 12 Apr 2019 · 56 MW · 11 13 Apr 2019 · 559 MW · 37 14 Apr 2019 · 70 MW · 31 15 Apr 2019 · 2 MW · 3
11 Apr 12 Apr 13 Apr 14 Apr 15 Apr

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

The weather it burned in

41°high
40km/h · peak gust
11%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

13% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 298 ha in 2017, 71 ha in 2018.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 1.8% of the area of London (29 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each town

  1. Diaroumé where it started
    1,898 ha reached on 11 Apr
    2.4 %
  2. 998 ha reached on 11 Apr
    0.8 %

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.

People and buildings inside the perimeter

GHSL 2020
Built-up area2.3 ha
Residents≈ 350

Inside the perimeter there were about 2.3 hectares of built-up land and about 350 residents (GHSL 2020, satellite-based estimate).

This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned.

Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu

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)

Started with Very dry air: 43 % of the area in Senegal 60 days without rain: 79 % of the area in Senegal

Day High Min. humidity Peak gust Rain Danger (FWI)
11 Apr 40.6 °C 11 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
12 Apr 38.8 °C 13 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 64
13 Apr 39.2 °C 14 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
14 Apr 39.5 °C 18 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
15 Apr 39.3 °C 17 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
16 Apr 41.0 °C 16 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
17 Apr after 40.8 °C 18 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
18 Apr after 40.4 °C 15 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
19 Apr after 40.8 °C 14 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
20 Apr after 40.1 °C 20 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
21 Apr after 37.5 °C 26 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
22 Apr after 37.1 °C 25 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
23 Apr after 36.9 °C 21 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
24 Apr after 38.3 °C 19 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
25 Apr after 40.0 °C 20 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
26 Apr after 40.4 °C 23 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 62.1, a minimum humidity of 11% and more than two months without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 56.

FWI at the start 62.1
Minimum humidity 11 %
Days without rain 60+
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Mampatim fire, February 2019
4,083 ha 8 days FWI 61.8 Min. humidity 11 % 98 km away, in 2019

First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.

What happened to them

6 days
median duration
2,198 ha
median area
100 %
went past 1,000 ha
—
rain at the end (median; 0 of 56 had it)

It burned an area similar to its twins (2,879 ha against a median of 2,198 ha) and lasted 6 days, against 6 days.

In none of them did 1 mm fall in the ten days after the end: they all went out without rain.

This is a bank of analogues: it shows what usually happens, not what will happen. With fewer than 15 twins we give no figures. How we calculate it

How it ended

—first rain
—no rain in ten days
40km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 16 Apr, and not even 1 mm fell in the following ten days: it went out without rain. None of its 56 twins had rain when they ended.

Weather on this page: Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)

How a twin is chosen

  • Same area: fires that have already ended, less than 250 km from this one, since 2016.
  • Same start: we compare the FWI on the first day, the minimum humidity that day and the run of days without rain before it. The slider sets how much they may differ.
  • Only pages with final weather data (ERA5 reanalysis) calculated in the same way as this fire’s; agricultural and grass burns and pages with data under review are left out.
  • Fires burning at the same time as this one (a week before or after) are left out: they share the same spell of weather and do not count as a precedent.
  • They are sorted by similarity, and the outlines of the first five are drawn.

How we calculate it

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 4 Apr 2019
After · 23 Apr 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 · 99Every 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 Diaroumé fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 11 April 2019 to 16 April 2019 (6 days). The perimeter dates it from 11 April 2019 to 15 April 2019.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 2,879 hectares (28.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Diaroumé (1,898 ha, 2.4 %); Bogal (998 ha, 0.8 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 41.0 °C, humidity dropped to 11 % and gusts hit 40 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 64, 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.
How did the fires that started in similar weather in this area end?
Fires less than 250 km away that started since 2016 with a similar FWI, humidity and dry spell: 56. Their median duration was 6 days and their median area 2,198 ha; 100 % went past 1,000 ha. In none of them did 1 mm fall in the ten days after the end: they all went out without rain.

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 · 1 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
  1. Last day with fire: 15 April 2019 → 16 April 2019.

RSS Changes to this page With cross-checks and a citable version

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.

How we know this
  • Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery.
  • Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 11 April 2019 to 15 April 2019. 99 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.
  • Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2020, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.

How we build fire pages: methodology

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.