Skip to content
worldfires
SN · Senegal · →

Fafacourou fire, 2 March 2019 Fafacourou, Nianing

Out · last detection 10 Mar 2019, 14:49 UTC

The fire started on 2 March 2019 in Fafacourou, Senegal, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,251 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 9th largest in Kolda since 2016 (of 195 with a page). Number 3 in Senegal in 2019, of 57.

Burnt area
6,251ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
8days
2 Mar 2019 – 9 Mar 2019
Municipalities hit
2
districts
Started on
2 Mar
2019
Heat detections
267
in a single hotspot: 82 MW
Danger at start
62
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
1.4GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

10 Mar 2019
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 2 Mar9 Mar

How it evolved, day by day

2345678910

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
40km/h · peak gust
10%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

49% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 795 ha in 2016, 2,471 ha in 2017, 173 ha in 2018. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 3,079 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Fafacourou where it started
    5,963 ha reached on 2 Mar
    6.6 %
  2. Nianing
    326 ha reached on 5 Mar
    0.2 %

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)
2 Mar 35.2 °C 10 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
3 Mar 36.5 °C 11 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
4 Mar 37.0 °C 11 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
5 Mar 38.7 °C 11 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
6 Mar 39.4 °C 10 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
7 Mar 38.8 °C 10 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
8 Mar 38.1 °C 12 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
9 Mar 37.8 °C 13 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
10 Mar after 39.0 °C 13 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
11 Mar after 40.7 °C 11 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 65
12 Mar after 39.6 °C 11 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 65
13 Mar after 39.1 °C 12 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 70
14 Mar after 39.6 °C 9 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 68
15 Mar after 40.6 °C 11 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
16 Mar after 41.1 °C 10 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
17 Mar after 41.1 °C 13 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
18 Mar after 41.2 °C 11 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
19 Mar after 41.2 °C 15 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 23 Feb 2019
After · 16 Mar 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 · 267Every 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 Fafacourou fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 2 March 2019 and 9 March 2019: 8 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 6,251 hectares (62.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Fafacourou (5,963 ha, 6.6 %); Nianing (326 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 39.4 °C, humidity dropped to 10 % and gusts hit 40 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

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. This is not an emergency service: if there is a fire now, call 18.

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.