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Koussané fire, October 2024 Koussané

Out · last detection 29 Oct 2024, 14:24 UTC

The fire started on 29 October 2024 in Koussané, Mali, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,821 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 134th largest in Kayes since 2016 (of 333 with a page). Number 39 in Mali in 2024, of 87.

Burnt area
2,821ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
1day
29 Oct 2024 – 29 Oct 2024
Municipalities hit
1
communes
Started on
29 Oct
2024
Heat detections
90
in a single hotspot: 48 MW
Danger at start
29
High · FWI index
Energy released
910MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 29 Oct29 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

29

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

The weather it burned in

37°high
17km/h · peak gust
27%lowest humidity

It had gone 20 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

63% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 9 ha in 2016, 8 ha in 2017, 364 ha in 2020, 1,653 ha in 2022, 21 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,778 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Koussané where it started
    2,840 ha reached on 29 Oct
    0.9 %

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)
29 Oct 37.2 °C 27 % 17 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
30 Oct after 37.9 °C 28 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
31 Oct after 37.1 °C 31 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
1 Nov after 39.2 °C 15 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
2 Nov after 38.7 °C 13 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
3 Nov after 37.9 °C 17 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
4 Nov after 37.7 °C 25 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
5 Nov after 38.1 °C 18 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
6 Nov after 37.9 °C 16 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
7 Nov after 37.0 °C 16 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
8 Nov after 36.9 °C 15 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 22 Oct 2024
After · 5 Nov 2024

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 30 October 2024 the air beside the fire reached 57 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 41: 2.8 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak57 µg/m³
Days over the guideline6 days
PM10134 µg/m³
Optical depth0.53
27282930311
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 · 90Every 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 Koussané fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 29 October 2024 and 29 October 2024: 1 day 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 2,821 hectares (28.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Koussané (2,840 ha, 0.9 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.2 °C, humidity dropped to 27 % and gusts hit 17 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 29, 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

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.