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ML · Mali · –

N'tillit fire, 31 October 2024 N'tillit

Out · last detection 2 Nov 2024, 13:32 UTC

The fire started on 31 October 2024 in N'tillit, Mali, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,459 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 46th largest in Gao since 2016 (of 78 with a page). Number 61 in Mali in 2024, of 87.

The power measured by the satellite is low (20.5 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Burnt area
2,459ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
3days
31 Oct 2024 – 2 Nov 2024
Municipalities hit
1
communes
Started on
31 Oct
2024
Heat detections
50
in a single hotspot: 21 MW
Danger at start
62
Extreme · FWI index
Average daily power
113MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 31 Oct2 Nov
2 Nov 2024

How it evolved, day by day

31 Oct 2024 · 104 MW · 6 1 Nov 2024 · 182 MW · 39 2 Nov 2024 · 54 MW · 5
31 Oct 1 Nov 2 Nov

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

The weather it burned in

38°high
34km/h · peak gust
6%lowest humidity

It had gone 23 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

1% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 18 ha in 2020.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 1.6% of the area of London (25 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. N'tillit where it started
    2,473 ha reached on 31 Oct
    0.2 %

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 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: 73 % of the area in Mali

Day High Min. humidity Peak gust Rain Danger (FWI)
31 Oct 37.6 °C 9 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
1 Nov 37.1 °C 8 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
2 Nov 37.0 °C 6 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
3 Nov after 36.6 °C 10 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 70
4 Nov after 36.4 °C 9 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 70
5 Nov after 35.8 °C 8 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 84
6 Nov after 34.3 °C 10 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 76
7 Nov after 34.5 °C 11 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 70
8 Nov after 34.9 °C 11 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 85
9 Nov after 34.8 °C 9 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 72
10 Nov after 33.7 °C 9 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 72
11 Nov after 33.7 °C 9 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 71
12 Nov after 34.3 °C 9 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 67

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 62.5, a minimum humidity of 9% and 23 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2017: 21.

FWI at the start 62.5
Minimum humidity 9 %
Days without rain 23
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Markoye fire, October 2023
1,477 ha 2 days FWI 63.0 Min. humidity 10 % 128 km away, in 2023

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

What happened to them

2 days
median duration
1,558 ha
median area
100 %
went past 1,000 ha
—
rain at the end (median; 0 of 21 had it)

It was 1.6 times larger than the median of its twins and lasted 3 days, against 2 days.

Only 6 of its 21 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
34km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 2 Nov, and not even 1 mm fell in the following ten days: it went out without rain. None of its 21 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 2017.
  • 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 · 24 Oct 2024
After · 9 Nov 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 3 November 2024 the air beside the fire reached 52 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 38: 2.5 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak52 µg/m³
Days over the guideline8 days
PM10325 µg/m³
Optical depth0.85
29 Oct31 Oct2 Nov4 Nov
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 · 50Every 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 Mali

Frequently asked questions

How long did the N'tillit fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 31 October 2024 and 2 November 2024: 3 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 2,459 hectares (24.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered N'tillit (2,473 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.6 °C, humidity dropped to 6 % and gusts hit 34 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 Mali (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 2017 with a similar FWI, humidity and dry spell: 21. Their median duration was 2 days and their median area 1,558 ha; 100 % went past 1,000 ha. Only 6 of its 21 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.

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
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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. 50 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 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.