How long did the Gouanan fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 22 January 2026 and 30 January 2026: 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 2,868 hectares (28.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 2 municipalities: Gouanan (2,762 ha, 1.6 %); Yinindougou (123 ha, 0.1 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 36.3 °C, humidity dropped to 11 % and gusts hit 40 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 47, 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 · 2026-01-22 → 2026-01-30

Gouanan fire, 22 January 2026 Gouanan, Yinindougou

Out · last detection 31 Jan 2026, 14:23 UTC

The fire started on 22 January 2026 in Gouanan, Mali, and satellites saw it burning for 9 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,868 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 5th largest in Sikasso since 2016 (of 17 with a page). Number 50 in Mali in 2026, of 116.

The power measured by the satellite is low (14.1 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Burnt area: 2,868ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 9days; 22 Jan 2026 – 30 Jan 2026
Municipalities hit: 2; communes
Started on: 22 Jan; 2026
Heat detections: 64; in a single hotspot: 14 MW
Danger at start: 40; Very high · FWI index
Energy released: 271MW; sum of detected power

Play back 31 Jan 2026

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 22 Jan30 Jan

How it evolved, day by day

222324252627293031

Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.

The weather it burned in

36°high

40km/h · peak gust

11%lowest humidity

It had gone 37 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

54% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 322 ha in 2018, 313 ha in 2019, 596 ha in 2021, 185 ha in 2024, 564 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,549 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

Gouanan where it started

2,762 ha reached on 15 Jan

1.6 %
Yinindougou

123 ha reached on 30 Jan

0.1 %

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)
22 Jan	31.7 °C	19 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
23 Jan	32.1 °C	17 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
24 Jan	34.1 °C	17 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
25 Jan	32.6 °C	11 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 47
26 Jan	33.1 °C	15 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 47
27 Jan	34.6 °C	11 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 45
28 Jan	35.1 °C	11 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44
29 Jan	35.9 °C	11 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 45
30 Jan	36.3 °C	12 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 45
31 Jan after	36.8 °C	12 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 46
1 Feb after	37.1 °C	13 %	21 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44
2 Feb after	37.8 °C	13 %	25 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 46
3 Feb after	31.7 °C	36 %	27 km/h	0.6 mm	High 32
4 Feb after	33.3 °C	30 %	23 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
5 Feb after	36.1 °C	16 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 43
6 Feb after	36.9 °C	15 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
7 Feb after	36.8 °C	12 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 48
8 Feb after	37.4 °C	14 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 46
9 Feb after	35.6 °C	14 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 48

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 15 Jan 2026

After · 6 Feb 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 27 January 2026 the air beside the fire reached 55 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 43: 2.8 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak55 µg/m³

Days over the guideline14 days

PM10182 µg/m³

Optical depth0.41

WHO 15

20212223242526272829303112

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 · 64Every 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 Gouanan fire last?: GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 22 January 2026 and 30 January 2026: 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 2,868 hectares (28.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 2 municipalities: Gouanan (2,762 ha, 1.6 %); Yinindougou (123 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 36.3 °C, humidity dropped to 11 % and gusts hit 40 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 47, 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 ↗

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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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.

Where it burned