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Koussané fire, April 2025 Koussané

Out · last detection 15 Apr 2025, 13:35 UTC

The fire started on 15 April 2025 in Koussané, Mali, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,456 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 203th largest in Kayes since 2016 (of 337 with a page). Number 188 in Mali in 2025, of 282.

The power measured by the satellite is low (21.1 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Burnt area
2,456ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
1day
15 Apr 2025 – 15 Apr 2025
Municipalities hit
1
communes
Started on
15 Apr
2025
Heat detections
23
in a single hotspot: 21 MW
Energy released
122MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 15 Apr15 Apr

How it evolved, day by day

15

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

This area had burned before

11% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 165 ha in 2020, 113 ha in 2023.

What happened to each town

  1. Koussané where it started
    2,473 ha reached on 15 Apr
    0.8 %

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.

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 8 Apr 2025
After · 22 Apr 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 16 April 2025 the air beside the fire reached 99 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 58: 3.9 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak99 µg/m³
Days over the guideline6 days
PM10331 µg/m³
Optical depth0.82
131415161718
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 · 23Every 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 15 April 2025 and 15 April 2025: 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 2,456 hectares (24.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Koussané (2,473 ha, 0.8 %).
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.