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Dilly fire, 24 October 2025 Dilly

Out · last detection 28 Oct 2025, 14:03 UTC

The fire started on 24 October 2025 in Dilly, Mali, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,696 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 6th largest in Koulikouro since 2016 (of 119 with a page). Number 38 in Mali in 2025, of 282.

Burnt area
5,696ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
4days
24 Oct 2025 – 27 Oct 2025
Municipalities hit
1
communes
Started on
24 Oct
2025
Heat detections
95
in a single hotspot: 122 MW
Danger at start
38
High · FWI index
Energy released
2.6GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

28 Oct 2025
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 24 Oct27 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

24262728

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
28km/h · peak gust
12%lowest humidity

It had gone 10 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

76% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,877 ha in 2016, 1,146 ha in 2018, 70 ha in 2020, 264 ha in 2021, 422 ha in 2022, 2,639 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 4,312 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Dilly where it started
    5,721 ha reached on 24 Oct
    1.0 %

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 Oct 38.7 °C 22 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
25 Oct 39.2 °C 22 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
26 Oct 39.9 °C 16 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
27 Oct 40.4 °C 12 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
28 Oct after 40.8 °C 11 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
29 Oct after 40.7 °C 11 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
30 Oct after 39.7 °C 18 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
31 Oct after 39.3 °C 20 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
1 Nov after 40.2 °C 15 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
2 Nov after 40.4 °C 9 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
3 Nov after 39.6 °C 11 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
4 Nov after 38.4 °C 19 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
5 Nov after 38.5 °C 15 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
6 Nov after 38.5 °C 15 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 17 Oct 2025
After · 3 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 24 October 2025 the air beside the fire reached 26 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 21: 1.4 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak26 µg/m³
Days over the guideline3 days
PM10102 µg/m³
Optical depth0.28
222324252627282930
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 · 95Every 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 Dilly fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 24 October 2025 and 27 October 2025: 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 5,696 hectares (57.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Dilly (5,721 ha, 1.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 40.4 °C, humidity dropped to 12 % and gusts hit 28 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 43, 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.

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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.