Fakala fire, April 2026 Fakala, Madiama, Djenne Commune
The fire started on 12 April 2026 in Fakala, Mali, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,833 hectares from heat detections, spread across 3 municipalities.
It is the 69th largest in Mopti since 2016 (of 160 with a page). Number 53 in Mali in 2026, of 122.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 2,833ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 3days
- 12 Apr 2026 – 14 Apr 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 3
- communes
- Started on
- 12 Apr
- 2026
- Heat detections
- 42
- in a single hotspot: 79 MW
- Danger at start
- 56
- Extreme · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 190MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
93% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,774 ha in 2019, 797 ha in 2020, 2,113 ha in 2021, 1,053 ha in 2023, 2,375 ha in 2024, 1,825 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,643 ha that had burned before.
- 2,375 ha Djenne Commune fire, April 2024 4,624 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,113 ha Fakala fire, April 2021 3,278 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,825 ha Fakala fire, May 2025 2,487 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,774 ha Fakala fire, April 2019 2,357 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
How big is it?
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Paris boundary: geoBoundaries · Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière (IGN-F) (Etalab Open License 2.0).
Madrid boundary: geoBoundaries · Open Data ESRI, IGN Central Registry of Cartography Area (CC BY 4.0).
Berlin boundary: geoBoundaries · Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy (dl-de/by-2-0).
This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.
What happened to each town
-
Fakala where it started1,776 ha reached on 13 Apr3.1 %
-
868 ha reached on 13 Apr5.0 %
-
206 ha reached on 14 Apr0.7 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 12 Apr | 37.1 °C | 20 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 56 |
| 13 Apr | 39.4 °C | 12 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 57 |
| 14 Apr | 38.9 °C | 14 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 58 |
| 15 Apr after | 38.7 °C | 9 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 59 |
| 16 Apr after | 38.5 °C | 8 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 67 |
| 17 Apr after | 39.1 °C | 6 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 64 |
| 18 Apr after | 40.2 °C | 6 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 64 |
| 19 Apr after | 41.8 °C | 6 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 63 |
| 20 Apr after | 42.1 °C | 7 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 67 |
| 21 Apr after | 41.4 °C | 8 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 59 |
| 22 Apr after | 41.4 °C | 21 % | 24 km/h | 0.5 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 23 Apr after | 43.7 °C | 10 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 55 |
| 24 Apr after | 42.3 °C | 16 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 60 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
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 · CopernicusOn 14 April 2026 the air beside the fire reached 71 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 58: 3.9 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
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 · 42Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Fakala fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 12 April 2026 and 14 April 2026: 3 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 2,833 hectares (28.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 3 municipalities: Fakala (1,776 ha, 3.1 %); Madiama (868 ha, 5.0 %); Djenne Commune (206 ha, 0.7 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 39.4 °C, humidity dropped to 12 % and gusts hit 36 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 58, class Extreme.
- 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.
Report an error
How we know this
- Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery.
- Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 42 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.
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.