How long did the Fanga fire last?

According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 13 October 2026 to 30 October 2026 (18 days). The perimeter dates it from 13 October 2026 to 29 October 2026.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 14,830 hectares (148.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 4 municipalities: Fanga (11,795 ha, 31 %); Guidimé (2,527 ha, 2.6 %); Kirané Kaniaga (591 ha, 0.5 %); Soumpou (5 ha, 0.0 %).

Is the Fanga fire still active?

No fire detections since 30 Oct 2026, 14:31 UTC. A lack of detections is not an official extinction.

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 39.7 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 47 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 46, class Very high.

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 · 2026-10-13 → 2026-10-30

Fanga fire, October 2026 Fanga, Guidimé, Kirané Kaniaga

Dying down · last detection 30 Oct 2026, 14:31 UTC

The fire started on 13 October 2026 in Fanga, Mali, and satellites saw it burning for 18 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 14,830 hectares from heat detections, spread across 4 municipalities.

It is the 3th largest in Kayes since 2016 (of 362 with a page). Number 2 in Mali in 2026, of 165.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Fanga · 2017 Fanga · 2019 Guidimé · 2025 Fanga · 2025

Is it still active?

No detections since 30 Oct 2026, 14:31 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: 14,830ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 18days; 13 Oct 2026 – 30 Oct 2026
Municipalities hit: 4; communes
Started on: 13 Oct; 2026
Heat detections: 295; in a single hotspot: 44 MW
Danger at start: 18; Moderate · FWI index
Average daily power: 172MW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 13 Oct30 Oct

Play back 30 Oct 2026

How it evolved, day by day

13 Oct 16 Oct 19 Oct 22 Oct 23 Oct 25 Oct 28 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

40°high

47km/h · peak gust

13%lowest humidity

It had gone 3 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

10% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,257 ha in 2017, 494 ha in 2019, 100 ha in 2022, 332 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,515 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

It burned the equivalent of 9.4% of the area of London (148 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

Fanga where it started

11,795 ha reached on 13 Oct

31 %
Guidimé

2,527 ha reached on 13 Oct

2.6 %
Kirané Kaniaga

591 ha reached on 14 Oct

0.5 %
Soumpou

5 ha reached on 20 Oct

0.0 %

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.

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)
13 Oct	35.7 °C	27 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 18
14 Oct	35.4 °C	25 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 19
15 Oct	36.5 °C	22 %	19 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 18
16 Oct	37.1 °C	20 %	25 km/h	0.0 mm	High 22
17 Oct	36.5 °C	26 %	23 km/h	0.3 mm	High 23
18 Oct	35.7 °C	33 %	29 km/h	0.7 mm	Moderate 19
19 Oct	35.4 °C	36 %	33 km/h	4.2 mm	Low 6
20 Oct	34.1 °C	36 %	24 km/h	0.1 mm	Moderate 15
21 Oct	36.5 °C	28 %	24 km/h	0.1 mm	Moderate 17
22 Oct	38.5 °C	20 %	22 km/h	0.0 mm	High 24
23 Oct	39.7 °C	15 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
24 Oct	39.0 °C	20 %	20 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
25 Oct	38.4 °C	15 %	46 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
26 Oct	36.5 °C	15 %	47 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 46
27 Oct	34.7 °C	13 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
28 Oct	34.8 °C	13 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
29 Oct	35.6 °C	14 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
30 Oct	37.0 °C	18 %	22 km/h	0.0 mm	High 38
31 Oct after	32.2 °C	38 %	37 km/h	0.4 mm	High 31

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 6 Oct 2026

After · 30 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 11 October 2026 the air beside the fire reached 55 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 44: 2.9 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak55 µg/m³

Days over the guideline5 days

PM10150 µg/m³

Optical depth0.51

WHO 15

1112131415161718

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 · 295Every 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 Fanga fire last?: According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 13 October 2026 to 30 October 2026 (18 days). The perimeter dates it from 13 October 2026 to 29 October 2026.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 14,830 hectares (148.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 4 municipalities: Fanga (11,795 ha, 31 %); Guidimé (2,527 ha, 2.6 %); Kirané Kaniaga (591 ha, 0.5 %); Soumpou (5 ha, 0.0 %).
Is the Fanga fire still active?: No fire detections since 30 Oct 2026, 14:31 UTC. A lack of detections is not an official extinction.
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 39.7 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 47 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 46, class Very high.
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 · 3 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.

29 October 2026 Area: 2,255 → 14,696 ha.
29 October 2026 The page “Guidimé, 14 October 2026” has been merged into this one: it was the same fire.
29 October 2026 The page “Fanga, 15 October 2026” has been merged into this one: it was the same fire.

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?

Dates or duration Place or towns Burned area Name It was not a wildfire Same fire as another page Something else

What really happened?

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How we know this

Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery; 4 polygons grouped in this page.
Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 13 October 2026 to 29 October 2026. 295 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.

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.