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SN · Senegal · –

Missira fire, 24 February 2025 Missira, Dianké Makan

Out · last detection 1 Mar 2025, 14:18 UTC

The fire started on 24 February 2025 in Missira, Senegal, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,336 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 16th largest in Tambacounda since 2016 (of 222 with a page). Number 3 in Senegal in 2025, of 45.

Burnt area
6,336ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
6days
24 Feb 2025 – 1 Mar 2025
Municipalities hit
2
districts
Started on
24 Feb
2025
Heat detections
199
in a single hotspot: 86 MW
Danger at start
59
Extreme · FWI index
Average daily power
220MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 24 Feb1 Mar
1 Mar 2025

How it evolved, day by day

24 Feb 2025 · 355 MW · 7 25 Feb 2025 · 434 MW · 43 26 Feb 2025 · 299 MW · 61 27 Feb 2025 · 140 MW · 52 28 Feb 2025 · 14 MW · 15 1 Mar 2025 · 78 MW · 21
25 Feb 28 Feb

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
44km/h · peak gust
12%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

77% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,744 ha in 2017, 310 ha in 2019, 26 ha in 2020, 1,134 ha in 2021, 19 ha in 2022, 2,156 ha in 2023, 3,604 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 4,888 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 4% of the area of London (63 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
    6,338 ha reached on 24 Feb
    0.8 %
  2. 41 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)
24 Feb 36.2 °C 14 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
25 Feb 35.3 °C 14 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
26 Feb 35.1 °C 13 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
27 Feb 37.3 °C 12 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
28 Feb 38.9 °C 12 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
1 Mar 39.3 °C 15 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
2 Mar after 39.7 °C 13 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
3 Mar after 34.8 °C 22 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
4 Mar after 36.7 °C 20 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
5 Mar after 38.5 °C 22 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
6 Mar after 37.5 °C 23 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
7 Mar after 39.8 °C 18 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
8 Mar after 40.9 °C 16 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
9 Mar after 40.8 °C 18 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
10 Mar after 41.4 °C 17 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
11 Mar after 41.4 °C 16 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 58.7, a minimum humidity of 14% and more than two months without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 58.

FWI at the start 58.7
Minimum humidity 14 %
Days without rain 60+
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Dianké Makan fire, March 2025
2,912 ha 4 days FWI 58.6 Min. humidity 14 % 7 km away, in 2025

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

What happened to them

6 days
median duration
2,604 ha
median area
100 %
went past 1,000 ha
—
rain at the end (median; 0 of 58 had it)

It was 2.4 times larger than the median of its twins and lasted 6 days, against 6 days.

Only 8 of its 58 twins burned more. The weather on the first day does not explain everything: the wind in the following days, the fuel and the firefighting also count. 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
44km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 1 Mar, and not even 1 mm fell in the following ten days: it went out without rain. None of its 58 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 · 17 Feb 2025
After · 8 Mar 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 24 February 2025 the air beside the fire reached 153 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 121: 8.1 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak153 µg/m³
Days over the guideline11 days
PM10900 µg/m³
Optical depth0.72
22 Feb25 Feb28 Feb3 Mar
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 · 199Every 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?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 24 February 2025 and 1 March 2025: 6 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 6,336 hectares (63.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Missira (6,338 ha, 0.8 %); Dianké Makan (41 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 39.3 °C, humidity dropped to 12 % and gusts hit 44 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 62, 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: 58. Their median duration was 6 days and their median area 2,604 ha; 100 % went past 1,000 ha. Only 8 of its 58 twins burned more. The weather on the first day does not explain everything: the wind in the following days, the fuel and the firefighting also count. 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 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night 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
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 from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 199 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.