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Kankossa fire, 2 November 2025 Kankossa

Out · last detection 4 Nov 2025, 13:32 UTC

The fire started on 2 November 2025 in Kankossa, Mauritania, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,574 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 4th largest in Assaba since 2016 (of 44 with a page). Number 5 in Mauritania in 2025, of 38.

Burnt area
5,574ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
3days
2 Nov 2025 – 4 Nov 2025
Municipalities hit
1
departments
Started on
2 Nov
2025
Heat detections
96
in a single hotspot: 82 MW
Danger at start
35
High · FWI index
Energy released
1.3GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

4 Nov 2025
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 2 Nov4 Nov

How it evolved, day by day

234

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
36km/h · peak gust
13%lowest humidity

It had gone 13 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

11% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 593 ha in 2024.

What happened to each town

  1. Kankossa where it started
    3,673 ha reached on 3 Nov
    0.4 %

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)
2 Nov 38.9 °C 16 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
3 Nov 39.2 °C 13 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
4 Nov 37.1 °C 20 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
5 Nov after 36.7 °C 32 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
6 Nov after 36.2 °C 33 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
7 Nov after 36.3 °C 31 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
8 Nov after 36.8 °C 31 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
9 Nov after 34.2 °C 22 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
10 Nov after 37.3 °C 21 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
11 Nov after 35.0 °C 32 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
12 Nov after 37.0 °C 25 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
13 Nov after 37.8 °C 18 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
14 Nov after 37.9 °C 20 % 14 km/h 0.0 mm High 38

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 26 Oct 2025
After · 11 Nov 2025

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 5 November 2025 the air beside the fire reached 63 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 36: 2.4 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak63 µg/m³
Days over the guideline5 days
PM10199 µg/m³
Optical depth0.43
311234567
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 · 96Every 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 timeSatelliteFRP (MW)LatLon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Mauritania ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Kankossa fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 2 November 2025 and 4 November 2025: 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 5,574 hectares (55.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Kankossa (3,673 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 39.2 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 36 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 Mauritania (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.

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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 ADM2 (Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Intergovernmental Organisations (CC BY 3.0 IGO)). 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.