Lanfiala fire, November 2025 Lanfiala, Timissa, Koula
The fire started on 16 November 2025 in Lanfiala, Mali, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 8,034 hectares from heat detections, spread across 3 municipalities.
It is the 4th largest in Ségou since 2016 (of 54 with a page). Number 16 in Mali in 2025, of 282.
The power measured by the satellite is low (27.3 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…
- Burnt area
- 8,034ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 5days
- 16 Nov 2025 – 20 Nov 2025
- Municipalities hit
- 3
- communes
- Started on
- 16 Nov
- 2025
- Heat detections
- 154
- in a single hotspot: 27 MW
- Danger at start
- 39
- Very high · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 180MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone 30 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
52% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,459 ha in 2020, 2,792 ha in 2021, 334 ha in 2022, 1,488 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 4,154 ha that had burned before.
- 2,792 ha Timissa fire, February 2021 12,485 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,459 ha Ségué fire, February 2020 18,490 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 333 ha Lanfiala fire, November 2024 2,652 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
How big is it?
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Paris boundary: geoBoundaries · Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière (IGN-F) (Etalab Open License 2.0).
Madrid boundary: geoBoundaries · Open Data ESRI, IGN Central Registry of Cartography Area (CC BY 4.0).
Berlin boundary: geoBoundaries · Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy (dl-de/by-2-0).
This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.
What happened to each town
-
Lanfiala where it started6,850 ha reached on 17 Nov19 %
-
1,089 ha reached on 18 Nov0.9 %
-
142 ha reached on 18 Nov0.2 %
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 2025Inside the perimeter there were about 5.0 hectares of built-up land and about 1,100 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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 16 Nov | 34.5 °C | 17 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 17 Nov | 34.3 °C | 15 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 18 Nov | 34.5 °C | 17 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 19 Nov | 34.9 °C | 16 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 20 Nov | 35.1 °C | 13 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 21 Nov after | 35.4 °C | 11 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 22 Nov after | 35.3 °C | 13 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 23 Nov after | 33.9 °C | 15 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 56 |
| 24 Nov after | 33.2 °C | 18 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 25 Nov after | 33.6 °C | 19 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 26 Nov after | 33.8 °C | 19 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 27 Nov after | 34.7 °C | 17 % | 21 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 28 Nov after | 34.3 °C | 16 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 29 Nov after | 34.6 °C | 19 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 50 |
| 30 Nov after | 34.8 °C | 25 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
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 · CopernicusOn 18 November 2025 the air beside the fire reached 35 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 30: 2.0 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
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 · 154Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 5,210 haKomboriFebruary 2026 · 3 days · 9 km away
- 12,485 haTimissaFebruary 2021 · 10 days · 10 km away
- 8,609 haTimissa14 February 2026 · 7 days · 13 km away
- 7,848 haLanfialaDecember 2024 · 9 days · 13 km away
- 18,490 haSéguéFebruary 2020 · 7 days · 15 km away
- 3,577 haTimissaDecember 2022 · 7 days · 24 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Lanfiala fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 16 November 2025 and 20 November 2025: 5 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 8,034 hectares (80.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 3 municipalities: Lanfiala (6,850 ha, 19 %); Timissa (1,089 ha, 0.9 %); Koula (142 ha, 0.2 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 35.1 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 29 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 43, class Very 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 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
No changes since 24 October 2026.
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
How we know this
- Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery.
- Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 154 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.
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.