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SN · Senegal · –

Djirédji fire, February 2021 Djirédji

Out · last detection 1 Mar 2021, 14:11 UTC

The fire started on 22 February 2021 in Djirédji, Senegal, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,697 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 38th largest in Sédhiou since 2016 (of 62 with a page). Number 38 in Senegal in 2021, of 73.

Burnt area
2,697ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
8days
22 Feb 2021 – 1 Mar 2021
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
22 Feb
2021
Heat detections
118
in a single hotspot: 113 MW
Danger at start
49
Very high · FWI index
Average daily power
384MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 22 Feb1 Mar
1 Mar 2021

How it evolved, day by day

22 Feb 2021 · 1,446 MW · 31 23 Feb 2021 · 52 MW · 6 24 Feb 2021 · 506 MW · 13 25 Feb 2021 · 366 MW · 27 26 Feb 2021 · 81 MW · 10 27 Feb 2021 · 441 MW · 15 28 Feb 2021 · 143 MW · 12 1 Mar 2021 · 34 MW · 4
22 Feb 24 Feb 26 Feb 28 Feb

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

The weather it burned in

39°high
48km/h · peak gust
14%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

71% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,410 ha in 2019, 705 ha in 2020. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,921 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 1.7% of the area of London (27 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. Djirédji where it started
    2,714 ha reached on 22 Feb
    4.0 %

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 area0.45 ha
Residents≈ 60

Inside the perimeter there were about 0.45 hectares of built-up land and about 60 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 60 days without rain: 79 % of the area in Senegal

Day High Min. humidity Peak gust Rain Danger (FWI)
22 Feb 39.1 °C 17 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
23 Feb 38.2 °C 23 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
24 Feb 39.1 °C 14 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
25 Feb 37.9 °C 17 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
26 Feb 36.2 °C 16 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 63
27 Feb 35.0 °C 19 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
28 Feb 34.5 °C 21 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
1 Mar 35.4 °C 21 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
2 Mar after 38.4 °C 17 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
3 Mar after 39.8 °C 17 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
4 Mar after 38.7 °C 20 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
5 Mar after 37.5 °C 21 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
6 Mar after 37.2 °C 26 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
7 Mar after 37.2 °C 24 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
8 Mar after 37.7 °C 24 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
9 Mar after 37.1 °C 22 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
10 Mar after 36.7 °C 23 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
11 Mar after 36.6 °C 21 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 49.4, a minimum humidity of 17% and more than two months without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 70.

FWI at the start 49.4
Minimum humidity 17 %
Days without rain 60+
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Karantaba fire, February 2024
3,423 ha 12 days FWI 49.1 Min. humidity 16 % 38 km away, in 2024

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

What happened to them

5 days
median duration
2,138 ha
median area
100 %
went past 1,000 ha
—
rain at the end (median; 0 of 70 had it)

It burned an area similar to its twins (2,697 ha against a median of 2,138 ha) and lasted 8 days, against 5 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
48km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 1 Mar, and not even 1 mm fell in the following ten days: it went out without rain. None of its 70 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 · 15 Feb 2021
After · 8 Mar 2021

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 · 118Every 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 Djirédji fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 22 February 2021 to 1 March 2021 (8 days). The perimeter dates it from 22 February 2021 to 28 February 2021.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 2,697 hectares (27.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Djirédji (2,714 ha, 4.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 39.1 °C, humidity dropped to 14 % and gusts hit 48 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 63, 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: 70. Their median duration was 5 days and their median area 2,138 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: 28 February 2021 → 1 March 2021.

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 22 February 2021 to 28 February 2021. 118 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.