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ML · Mali · –

Kéméné Tambo fire, October 2025 Kéméné Tambo, Same Diomboma

Out · last detection 8 Nov 2025, 13:57 UTC

The fire started on 15 October 2025 in Kéméné Tambo, Mali, and satellites saw it burning for 25 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,838 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

Number 25 in Mali in 2025, of 252.

GWIS near-real-time perimeter, from the layer that changed in August 2025: this fire is not compared with fires from earlier years, because since then the GWIS layer gives more and larger perimeters.

Burnt area
6,838ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
25days
15 Oct 2025 – 8 Nov 2025
Municipalities hit
2
communes
Started on
15 Oct
2025
Heat detections
139
in a single hotspot: 93 MW
Danger at start
10
Low · FWI index
Average daily power
74MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 15 Oct8 Nov
8 Nov 2025

How it evolved, day by day

15 Oct 2025 · 7 MW · 2 17 Oct 2025 · 4 MW · 1 18 Oct 2025 · 22 MW · 3 20 Oct 2025 · 25 MW · 2 22 Oct 2025 · 63 MW · 11 23 Oct 2025 · 82 MW · 10 24 Oct 2025 · 30 MW · 6 25 Oct 2025 · 45 MW · 7 26 Oct 2025 · 126 MW · 7 27 Oct 2025 · 353 MW · 15 28 Oct 2025 · 70 MW · 12 30 Oct 2025 · 20 MW · 5 31 Oct 2025 · 284 MW · 35 1 Nov 2025 · 128 MW · 14 2 Nov 2025 · 42 MW · 4 3 Nov 2025 · 21 MW · 2 6 Nov 2025 · 5 MW · 1 8 Nov 2025 · 9 MW · 2
15 Oct 22 Oct 27 Oct 31 Oct 6 Nov

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
17%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

22% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 794 ha in 2019, 690 ha in 2022.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 4.3% of the area of London (68 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

  1. Kéméné Tambo where it started
    6,860 ha reached on 15 Oct
    12 %
  2. 22 ha reached on 17 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.

People and buildings inside the perimeter

GHSL 2025
Built-up area< 0.1 ha
Residents≈ 30

Inside the perimeter there were about 0.08 hectares of built-up land and about 30 residents (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) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)

Day High Min. humidity Peak gust Rain Danger (FWI)
15 Oct 37.0 °C 47 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Low 10
16 Oct 38.6 °C 45 % 27 km/h 1.1 mm Moderate 12
17 Oct 37.1 °C 47 % 29 km/h 0.4 mm Moderate 14
18 Oct 36.5 °C 46 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 13
19 Oct 36.8 °C 47 % 27 km/h 0.1 mm Moderate 13
20 Oct 36.9 °C 42 % 28 km/h 0.2 mm Moderate 15
21 Oct 36.5 °C 40 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 17
22 Oct 38.4 °C 36 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
23 Oct 38.4 °C 43 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 21
24 Oct 38.4 °C 41 % 28 km/h 0.2 mm High 21
25 Oct 38.1 °C 39 % 27 km/h 0.2 mm High 22
26 Oct 38.9 °C 33 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
27 Oct 39.2 °C 32 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
28 Oct 38.8 °C 35 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
29 Oct 38.5 °C 35 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
30 Oct 38.3 °C 40 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
31 Oct 38.7 °C 35 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
1 Nov 38.1 °C 37 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
2 Nov 39.0 °C 32 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
3 Nov 39.4 °C 17 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
4 Nov 37.9 °C 36 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
5 Nov 37.1 °C 37 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
6 Nov 37.4 °C 35 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
7 Nov 36.9 °C 37 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
8 Nov 37.4 °C 35 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
9 Nov after 35.8 °C 33 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
10 Nov after 35.4 °C 29 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
11 Nov after 35.9 °C 34 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
12 Nov after 37.6 °C 29 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
13 Nov after 36.9 °C 23 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
14 Nov after 38.4 °C 25 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
15 Nov after 39.1 °C 28 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
16 Nov after 38.9 °C 19 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
17 Nov after 38.4 °C 20 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
18 Nov after 37.3 °C 23 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 8 Oct 2025
After · 15 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 28 October 2025 the air beside the fire reached 92 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 60: 4.0 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak92 µg/m³
Days over the guideline20 days
PM10121 µg/m³
Optical depth0.70
18 Oct22 Oct26 Oct30 Oct3 Nov
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 · 139Every 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 Mali

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Kéméné Tambo fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 15 October 2025 to 8 November 2025 (25 days). The perimeter dates it from 20 October 2025 to 3 November 2025.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 6,838 hectares (68.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Kéméné Tambo (6,860 ha, 12 %); Same Diomboma (22 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 39.4 °C, humidity dropped to 17 % and gusts hit 32 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 35, class 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

History of this page · 2 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
  1. Last day with fire: 3 November 2025 → 8 November 2025.
  2. Start date: 20 October 2025 → 15 October 2025.

RSS Changes to this page With cross-checks and a citable version

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
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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 20 October 2025 to 3 November 2025. 139 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.
  • 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.