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 25 October 2026 (14 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 2,988 hectares (29.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 2 municipalities: Falémé (2,480 ha, 3.6 %); Fégui (527 ha, 8.1 %).

Is the Falémé fire still active?

No fire detections since 26 Oct 2026, 14:27 UTC. A lack of detections is not an official extinction.

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 38.7 °C, humidity dropped to 27 % and gusts hit 32 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 19, 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.

ML · Mali · 2026-10-12 → 2026-10-25

Falémé fire, 12 October 2026 Falémé, Fégui

Dying down · last detection 26 Oct 2026, 14:27 UTC

The fire started on 12 October 2026 in Falémé, Mali, and satellites saw it burning for 14 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,988 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 127th largest in Kayes since 2016 (of 353 with a page). Number 63 in Mali in 2026, of 147.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Falémé · 2026 Kéméné Tambo · 2026 Kéméné Tambo · 2025 Ghabou · 2025

Is it still active?

No detections since 26 Oct 2026, 14:27 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: 2,988ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 14days; 12 Oct 2026 – 25 Oct 2026
Municipalities hit: 2; communes
Started on: 12 Oct; 2026
Heat detections: 20; in a single hotspot: 44 MW
Danger at start: 7; Low · FWI index
Average daily power: 50MW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 12 Oct25 Oct

Play back 26 Oct 2026

How it evolved, day by day

13 Oct 14 Oct 15 Oct 17 Oct 19 Oct 23 Oct 26 Oct

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

32km/h · peak gust

27%lowest humidity

It had gone one day without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

9% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 160 ha in 2019, 120 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 257 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

It burned the equivalent of 1.9% of the area of London (30 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

Falémé where it started

2,480 ha reached on 13 Oct

3.6 %
Fégui

527 ha reached on 17 Oct

8.1 %

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 2025

Built-up area0.12 ha

Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there were about 0.12 hectares of built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2025, 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. The GHSL 2025 epoch is a projection made from 2020 and earlier data.

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) · forecast models, provisional until the ERA5 reanalysis arrives

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	35.3 °C	38 %	28 km/h	0.2 mm	Moderate 17
19 Oct	35.7 °C	38 %	24 km/h	2.0 mm	Low 9
20 Oct	31.3 °C	56 %	19 km/h	0.5 mm	Low 10
21 Oct	34.5 °C	48 %	27 km/h	2.5 mm	Very low 5
22 Oct	37.7 °C	29 %	16 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 13
23 Oct	38.7 °C	27 %	20 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 18
24 Oct	37.0 °C	39 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 19
25 Oct	37.7 °C	32 %	22 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 19
26 Oct after	36.8 °C	24 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	High 27
27 Oct after	34.7 °C	19 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	High 25

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 5 Oct 2026

After · 26 Oct 2026

Before After

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 · Copernicus

On 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).

PM2.5 peak79 µg/m³

Days over the guideline8 days

PM10163 µg/m³

Optical depth0.66

WHO 15

1011121314151617

Good Fair Moderate Poor Very poor Extremely poor

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 · 20Every 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 time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Mali ›

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 25 October 2026 (14 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 2,988 hectares (29.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 2 municipalities: Falémé (2,480 ha, 3.6 %); Fégui (527 ha, 8.1 %).
Is the Falémé fire still active?: No fire detections since 26 Oct 2026, 14:27 UTC. A lack of detections is not an official extinction.
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 38.7 °C, humidity dropped to 27 % and gusts hit 32 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 19, 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

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

History of this page Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.

No changes since 24 October 2026.

RSS Changes to this page

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.

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What do you think is wrong?

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What really happened?

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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 12 October 2026 to 18 October 2026. 20 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
We have not matched this page with any official record.
Weather: ECMWF IFS model, provisional until the ERA5 reanalysis arrives.
Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2025, 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 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.