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SN · Senegal · –

Missira fire, 25 January 2024 Missira, Bandafassi

Out · last detection 28 Jan 2024, 13:40 UTC

The fire started on 25 January 2024 in Missira, Senegal, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,817 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 94th largest in Tambacounda since 2016 (of 222 with a page). Number 30 in Senegal in 2024, of 65.

Burnt area
2,817ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
5days
25 Jan 2024 – 29 Jan 2024
Municipalities hit
2
districts
Started on
25 Jan
2024
Heat detections
90
in a single hotspot: 35 MW
Danger at start
60
Extreme · FWI index
Average daily power
178MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 25 Jan29 Jan
28 Jan 2024

How it evolved, day by day

25 Jan 2024 · 224 MW · 14 26 Jan 2024 · 290 MW · 36 27 Jan 2024 · 192 MW · 39 28 Jan 2024 · 5 MW · 1
25 Jan 26 Jan 27 Jan 28 Jan

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

The weather it burned in

39°high
41km/h · peak gust
10%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

98% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,504 ha in 2017, 6 ha in 2018, 1,778 ha in 2019, 53 ha in 2020, 1,220 ha in 2021, 1,326 ha in 2022, 2,532 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,750 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 1.8% of the area of London (28 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each town

  1. Missira where it started
    2,831 ha reached on 25 Jan
    0.3 %
  2. 0 ha
    0.0 %

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.

People and buildings inside the perimeter

GHSL 2025
Built-up area< 0.1 ha
Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (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)

Started with Very dry air: 43 % of the area in Senegal 60 days without rain: 79 % of the area in Senegal

Day High Min. humidity Peak gust Rain Danger (FWI)
25 Jan 39.4 °C 10 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
26 Jan 38.7 °C 10 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 66
27 Jan 38.4 °C 13 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 64
28 Jan 37.9 °C 13 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 63
29 Jan 37.7 °C 11 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
30 Jan after 37.7 °C 12 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
31 Jan after 37.3 °C 13 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
1 Feb after 37.1 °C 13 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
2 Feb after 38.9 °C 12 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 64
3 Feb after 39.1 °C 8 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 63
4 Feb after 39.7 °C 12 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
5 Feb after 40.8 °C 15 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
6 Feb after 40.4 °C 12 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 64
7 Feb after 40.4 °C 9 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 63
8 Feb after 40.9 °C 9 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 63

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 59.6, a minimum humidity of 10% and more than two months without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 61.

FWI at the start 59.6
Minimum humidity 10 %
Days without rain 60+
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Bandafassi fire, February 2021
7,027 ha 14 days FWI 59.7 Min. humidity 10 % 58 km away, in 2021

First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.

What happened to them

5 days
median duration
2,358 ha
median area
100 %
went past 1,000 ha
—
rain at the end (median; 0 of 61 had it)

It burned an area similar to its twins (2,817 ha against a median of 2,358 ha) and lasted 5 days, against 5 days.

In none of them did 1 mm fall in the ten days after the end: they all went out without rain.

This is a bank of analogues: it shows what usually happens, not what will happen. With fewer than 15 twins we give no figures. How we calculate it

How it ended

—first rain
—no rain in ten days
41km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 29 Jan, and not even 1 mm fell in the following ten days: it went out without rain. None of its 61 twins had rain when they ended.

Weather on this page: Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)

How a twin is chosen

  • Same area: fires that have already ended, less than 250 km from this one, since 2016.
  • Same start: we compare the FWI on the first day, the minimum humidity that day and the run of days without rain before it. The slider sets how much they may differ.
  • Only pages with final weather data (ERA5 reanalysis) calculated in the same way as this fire’s; agricultural and grass burns and pages with data under review are left out.
  • Fires burning at the same time as this one (a week before or after) are left out: they share the same spell of weather and do not count as a precedent.
  • They are sorted by similarity, and the outlines of the first five are drawn.

How we calculate it

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 18 Jan 2024
After · 5 Feb 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 25 January 2024 the air beside the fire reached 115 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 74: 5.0 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak115 µg/m³
Days over the guideline9 days
PM10248 µg/m³
Optical depth0.60
23 Jan25 Jan27 Jan29 Jan31 Jan
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 Senegal

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Missira fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 25 January 2024 to 29 January 2024 (5 days). The perimeter dates it from 25 January 2024 to 28 January 2024.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 2,817 hectares (28.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Missira (2,831 ha, 0.3 %); Bandafassi (0 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 39.4 °C, humidity dropped to 10 % and gusts hit 41 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 66, 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.
How did the fires that started in similar weather in this area end?
Fires less than 250 km away that started since 2016 with a similar FWI, humidity and dry spell: 61. Their median duration was 5 days and their median area 2,358 ha; 100 % went past 1,000 ha. In none of them did 1 mm fall in the ten days after the end: they all went out without rain.

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 · 1 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
  1. Last day with fire: 28 January 2024 → 29 January 2024.

RSS Changes to this page With cross-checks and a citable version

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
What do you think is wrong?

We will only use your email to reply about this report. Privacy. This is not an emergency service: if there is a fire now, call 18.

How we know this
  • Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery.
  • Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 25 January 2024 to 28 January 2024. 90 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.

How we build fire pages: methodology

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.