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Fafacourou fire, 24 February 2021 Fafacourou

Out · last detection 4 Mar 2021, 14:55 UTC

The fire started on 24 February 2021 in Fafacourou, Senegal, and satellites saw it burning for 9 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 8,867 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 4th largest in Kolda since 2016 (of 195 with a page). Number 7 in Senegal in 2021, of 73.

Burnt area
8,867ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
9days
24 Feb 2021 – 4 Mar 2021
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
24 Feb
2021
Heat detections
306
in a single hotspot: 41 MW
Danger at start
53
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
2.6GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

4 Mar 2021
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 24 Feb4 Mar

How it evolved, day by day

24252627281234

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
45km/h · peak gust
13%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: 3,348 ha in 2016, 2,009 ha in 2017, 247 ha in 2018, 1,121 ha in 2019, 4,174 ha in 2020. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 6,264 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Fafacourou where it started
    8,921 ha reached on 24 Feb
    9.9 %

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 Feb 39.0 °C 13 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
25 Feb 37.9 °C 15 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
26 Feb 36.2 °C 16 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 63
27 Feb 35.2 °C 18 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
28 Feb 35.3 °C 19 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
1 Mar 36.4 °C 18 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
2 Mar 38.8 °C 16 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
3 Mar 40.0 °C 17 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
4 Mar 38.9 °C 20 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
5 Mar after 37.9 °C 21 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
6 Mar after 38.2 °C 30 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
7 Mar after 37.2 °C 26 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
8 Mar after 38.8 °C 22 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
9 Mar after 38.2 °C 20 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
10 Mar after 37.3 °C 22 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
11 Mar after 37.2 °C 20 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
12 Mar after 37.6 °C 20 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
13 Mar after 36.9 °C 20 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
14 Mar after 38.0 °C 20 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 17 Feb 2021
After · 11 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 · 306Every 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 24 February 2021 and 4 March 2021: 9 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 8,867 hectares (88.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Fafacourou (8,921 ha, 9.9 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 40.0 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 45 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.

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.