Mampatim fire, April 2018 Mampatim, Fafacourou
The fire started on 14 April 2018 in Mampatim, Senegal, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,017 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 66th largest in Kolda since 2016 (of 195 with a page). Number 12 in Senegal in 2018, of 30.
The power measured by the satellite is low (21.0 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
- 3,017ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 8days
- 14 Apr 2018 – 21 Apr 2018
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- districts
- Started on
- 14 Apr
- 2018
- Heat detections
- 105
- in a single hotspot: 21 MW
- Danger at start
- 52
- Extreme · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 85MW
- 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 more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
56% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,034 ha in 2016, 1,467 ha in 2017. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,682 ha that had burned before.
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
-
Mampatim where it started3,002 ha reached on 14 Apr1.2 %
-
35 ha0.0 %
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.
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 14 Apr | 39.9 °C | 16 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 15 Apr | 40.1 °C | 16 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 60 |
| 16 Apr | 41.1 °C | 13 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 58 |
| 17 Apr | 41.7 °C | 15 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 57 |
| 18 Apr | 40.8 °C | 15 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 64 |
| 19 Apr | 38.6 °C | 13 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 59 |
| 20 Apr | 38.2 °C | 16 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 58 |
| 21 Apr | 39.6 °C | 22 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 22 Apr after | 39.1 °C | 20 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 23 Apr after | 40.8 °C | 19 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 55 |
| 24 Apr after | 41.5 °C | 15 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 56 |
| 25 Apr after | 42.9 °C | 11 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 58 |
| 26 Apr after | 42.7 °C | 11 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 27 Apr after | 40.7 °C | 23 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 62 |
| 28 Apr after | 41.4 °C | 16 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 55 |
| 29 Apr after | 41.9 °C | 12 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 30 Apr after | 42.3 °C | 12 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 1 May after | 41.3 °C | 14 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 59 |
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.
Detections table · 105Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 8,867 haFafacourou24 February 2021 · 9 days · 18 km away
- 6,251 haFafacourou2 March 2019 · 8 days · 18 km away
- 5,884 haFafacourouFebruary 2025 · 8 days · 20 km away
- 7,782 haNdornaFebruary 2020 · 7 days · 22 km away
- 6,663 haFafacourou5 February 2020 · 8 days · 25 km away
- 8,892 haFafacourou22 February 2021 · 12 days · 26 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Mampatim fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 14 April 2018 and 21 April 2018: 8 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 3,017 hectares (30.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Mampatim (3,002 ha, 1.2 %); Fafacourou (35 ha, 0.0 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 41.7 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 35 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 64, class Extreme.
- 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 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. 105 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.
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.