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Koussanar fire, December 2023 Koussanar, Vélingara

Out · last detection 20 Dec 2023, 14:12 UTC

The fire started on 17 December 2023 in Koussanar, Senegal, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,628 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 152th largest in Tambacounda since 2016 (of 293 with a page). Number 43 in Senegal in 2023, of 83.

The power measured by the satellite is low (9.6 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Koulor · 2019Sinthiou Banambe/Wouro Sidy · 2020Sinthiou Banambe/Wouro Sidy · 2023Koulor · 2022

Burnt area
2,628ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
4days
17 Dec 2023 – 20 Dec 2023
Municipalities hit
2
districts
Started on
17 Dec
2023
Heat detections
72
in a single hotspot: 10 MW
Danger at start
44
Very high · FWI index
Average daily power
79MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 17 Dec20 Dec
20 Dec 2023

How it evolved, day by day

17 Dec 2023 · 59 MW · 22 18 Dec 2023 · 179 MW · 36 19 Dec 2023 · 63 MW · 12 20 Dec 2023 · 15 MW · 2
17 Dec 18 Dec 19 Dec 20 Dec

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

The weather it burned in

29°high
41km/h · peak gust
24%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

39% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 886 ha in 2020, 139 ha in 2022.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 1.7% of the area of London (26 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. Koussanar where it started
    1,755 ha reached on 17 Dec
    0.6 %
  2. Vélingara
    888 ha reached on 18 Dec
    0.1 %

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 area< 0.1 ha
Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable 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) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)

Day High Min. humidity Peak gust Rain Danger (FWI)
17 Dec 28.7 °C 26 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
18 Dec 28.8 °C 24 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
19 Dec 25.9 °C 24 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
20 Dec 26.8 °C 22 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
21 Dec after 28.5 °C 19 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
22 Dec after 29.8 °C 26 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
23 Dec after 31.1 °C 25 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
24 Dec after 35.5 °C 22 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
25 Dec after 36.4 °C 23 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
26 Dec after 36.3 °C 18 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
27 Dec after 36.8 °C 17 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
28 Dec after 37.4 °C 18 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
29 Dec after 36.7 °C 18 % 31 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 · 10 Dec 2023
After · 27 Dec 2023

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 18 December 2023 the air beside the fire reached 200 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 168: 11 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak200 µg/m³
Days over the guideline8 days
PM10633 µg/m³
Optical depth0.90
1516171819202122
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 · 72Every 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 Senegal ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Koussanar fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 17 December 2023 to 20 December 2023 (4 days). The perimeter dates it from 17 December 2023 to 19 December 2023.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 2,628 hectares (26.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Koussanar (1,755 ha, 0.6 %); Vélingara (888 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 28.8 °C, humidity dropped to 24 % and gusts hit 41 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 45, class Very high.
Where does this data come from?
From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Senegal (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.

Emergency number: 18 · Emergency number and official warnings ›

Satellite cross-check

History of this page · 1 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
  1. Last day with fire: 19 December 2023 → 20 December 2023.

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.

Report an error
What do you think is wrong?

We will only use your email to reply about this report. Privacy. This is not an emergency service: if there is a fire now, call 18.

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 17 December 2023 to 19 December 2023. 72 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 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.