Ménaka fire, 3 November 2024 Ménaka
The fire started on 3 November 2024 in Ménaka, Mali, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 11,361 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 4th largest in Gao since 2016 (of 135 with a page). Number 3 in Mali in 2024, of 87.
Compare with…
We have the GWIS perimeter for this fire, but the VIIRS sensors did not capture it in enough detail: no day-by-day evolution, but the split by municipality is there.
- Burnt area
- 11,361ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 2days
- 3 Nov 2024 – 4 Nov 2024
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- communes
- Started on
- 3 Nov
- 2024
- Danger at start
- 67
- Extreme · FWI index
Where it burned
The weather it burned in
It had gone 48 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
36% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 680 ha in 2017, 1,139 ha in 2019, 1,115 ha in 2020, 1,679 ha in 2021, 880 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 4,069 ha that had burned before.
- 1,139 ha Ménaka fire, December 2019 3,885 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,015 ha Ménaka fire, May 2020 3,342 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,009 ha Ménaka fire, March 2021 2,596 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 680 ha Banibangou fire, October 2017 1,480 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 100 ha Banibangou fire, October 2020 1,112 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
-
Ménaka where it started10,443 ha0.7 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3 Nov | 36.0 °C | 12 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 67 |
| 4 Nov | 36.0 °C | 7 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 73 |
| 5 Nov after | 34.6 °C | 10 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 80 |
| 6 Nov after | 33.8 °C | 11 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 71 |
| 7 Nov after | 34.0 °C | 12 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 65 |
| 8 Nov after | 34.4 °C | 13 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 72 |
| 9 Nov after | 34.2 °C | 11 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 73 |
| 10 Nov after | 33.5 °C | 12 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 69 |
| 11 Nov after | 33.5 °C | 10 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 66 |
| 12 Nov after | 34.6 °C | 9 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 62 |
| 13 Nov after | 35.9 °C | 10 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 64 |
| 14 Nov after | 36.9 °C | 12 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 70 |
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 4 November 2024 the air beside the fire reached 83 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 55: 3.7 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)
Other fires nearby
- 2,596 haMénaka27 March 2021 · 2 days · 5 km away
- 3,342 haMénakaMay 2020 · 1 day · 8 km away
- 2,403 haBanibangou25 February 2026 · 1 day · 9 km away
- 8,202 haMénaka30 October 2025 · 2 days · 10 km away
- 3,885 haMénakaDecember 2019 · 2 days · 14 km away
- 2,953 haTondikiwindi2 November 2025 · 3 days · 31 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Ménaka fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 3 November 2024 and 4 November 2024: 2 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 11,361 hectares (113.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Ménaka (10,443 ha, 0.7 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 36.0 °C, humidity dropped to 7 % and gusts hit 44 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 73, class Very 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
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; 2 polygons grouped in this page.
- Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. No 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 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.