Falémé fire, 12 October 2026 Falémé, Kéméné Tambo, Same Diomboma
The fire started on 12 October 2026 in Falémé, Mali, and satellites saw it burning for 12 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 9,060 hectares from heat detections, spread across 3 municipalities.
It is the 6th largest in Kayes since 2016 (of 337 with a page). Number 4 in Mali in 2026, of 122.
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Is it still active?
No detections since 23 Oct 2026, 15:01 UTC. That usually means no flame is visible from space any more, although hotspots may remain. Satellites pass a few times a day and cloud or smoke can hide the fire: a lack of detections is not an official extinction. Each country’s emergency service declares a fire contained or out.
- Burnt area
- 9,060ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 12days
- 12 Oct 2026 – 23 Oct 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 3
- communes
- Started on
- 12 Oct
- 2026
- Heat detections
- 111
- in a single hotspot: 47 MW
- Danger at start
- 7
- Low · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 104MW
- 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 one day without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
53% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 651 ha in 2016, 978 ha in 2017, 383 ha in 2019, 986 ha in 2020, 1,612 ha in 2022, 1,492 ha in 2024, 1,611 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 4,834 ha that had burned before.
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
-
Falémé where it started9,049 ha reached on 12 Oct13 %
-
57 ha0.1 %
-
6 ha0.0 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 12 Oct | 35.1 °C | 40 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 7 |
| 13 Oct | 35.6 °C | 36 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Low 11 |
| 14 Oct | 35.6 °C | 30 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 12 |
| 15 Oct | 36.1 °C | 29 % | 16 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 12 |
| 16 Oct | 36.3 °C | 33 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 14 |
| 17 Oct | 36.3 °C | 33 % | 25 km/h | 0.5 mm | Moderate 16 |
| 18 Oct | 37.0 °C | 33 % | 70 km/h | 0.6 mm | Moderate 18 |
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 16 October 2026 the air beside the fire reached 79 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 57: 3.8 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 · 111Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 9,429 haFalémé 11 October 2026 · 13 days · 12 km away
- 5,660 haKiniéba1 November 2025 · 6 days · 21 km away
- 6,843 haKéméné TamboOctober 2025 · 15 days · 23 km away
- 4,476 haSame Diomboma31 October 2025 · 5 days · 24 km away
- 5,889 haSame Diomboma13 October 2026 · 6 days · 31 km away
- 6,253 haKiniéba29 October 2022 · 7 days · 34 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Falémé fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 12 October 2026 to 23 October 2026 (12 days). The perimeter dates it from 12 October 2026 to 18 October 2026.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 9,060 hectares (90.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 3 municipalities: Falémé (9,049 ha, 13 %); Kéméné Tambo (57 ha, 0.1 %); Same Diomboma (6 ha, 0.0 %).
- Is the Falémé fire still active?
- No fire detections since 23 Oct 2026, 15:01 UTC. A lack of detections is not an official extinction.
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 36.3 °C, humidity dropped to 29 % and gusts hit 32 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 16, class Moderate.
- 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; 2 polygons grouped in this page.
- Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 12 October 2026 to 18 October 2026. 111 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.