How long did the Koussané fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 21 October 2021 and 23 October 2021: 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 5,599 hectares (56.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Koussané (5,635 ha, 1.8 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 37.8 °C, humidity dropped to 14 % and gusts hit 37 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 52, class Extreme.

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 · 2021-10-21 → 2021-10-23

Koussané fire, October 2021 Koussané

Out · last detection 24 Oct 2021, 13:29 UTC

The fire started on 21 October 2021 in Koussané, Mali, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,599 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 33th largest in Kayes since 2016 (of 333 with a page). Number 7 in Mali in 2021, of 58.

Burnt area: 5,599ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 3days; 21 Oct 2021 – 23 Oct 2021
Municipalities hit: 1; communes
Started on: 21 Oct; 2021
Heat detections: 158; in a single hotspot: 61 MW
Danger at start: 52; Extreme · FWI index
Energy released: 2.5GW; sum of detected power

Play back 24 Oct 2021

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 21 Oct23 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

21222324

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

The weather it burned in

38°high

37km/h · peak gust

14%lowest humidity

It had gone 18 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.6 mm on 26 Oct.

This area had burned before

24% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,321 ha in 2016.

582 ha Koussané fire, December 2016 3,306 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire

What happened to each town

Koussané where it started

5,635 ha reached on 21 Oct

1.8 %

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)
21 Oct	37.8 °C	14 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 52
22 Oct	37.3 °C	15 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 49
23 Oct	37.8 °C	30 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
24 Oct after	37.2 °C	35 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
25 Oct after	37.6 °C	32 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	High 35
26 Oct after	39.5 °C	30 %	28 km/h	1.6 mm	High 28

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 14 Oct 2021

After · 30 Oct 2021

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.

Detections table · 158Every 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 Koussané fire last?: GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 21 October 2021 and 23 October 2021: 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 5,599 hectares (56.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Koussané (5,635 ha, 1.8 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 37.8 °C, humidity dropped to 14 % and gusts hit 37 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 52, class Extreme.
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