Nasséré fire, 21 November 2025 Nasséré, Sabsé, Zimtanga
The fire started on 21 November 2025 in Nasséré, Burkina Faso, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 13,396 hectares from heat detections, spread across 5 municipalities.
It is the 4th largest in Koulsé since 2016 (of 238 with a page). Number 13 in Burkina Faso in 2025, of 609.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 13,396ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 5days
- 21 Nov 2025 – 25 Nov 2025
- Municipalities hit
- 5
- communes
- Started on
- 21 Nov
- 2025
- Heat detections
- 284
- in a single hotspot: 98 MW
- Danger at start
- 53
- Extreme · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 661MW
- 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 46 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: 1,106 ha in 2022, 1,188 ha in 2023, 3,400 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 4,816 ha that had burned before.
- 1,500 ha Nasséré fire, January 2024 1,641 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,106 ha Nasséré fire, December 2022 1,144 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 916 ha Nasséré fire, January 2024 1,092 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 811 ha Zimtanga fire, November 2023 1,733 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 402 ha Nasséré fire, December 2024 1,453 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 377 ha Kongoussi fire, November 2023 1,539 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 327 ha Nasséré fire, January 2024 2,103 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 254 ha Nasséré fire, November 2024 2,163 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
-
Nasséré where it started7,774 ha reached on 17 Nov56 %
-
2,372 ha reached on 18 Nov6.8 %
-
2,154 ha reached on 22 Nov4.7 %
-
1,121 ha reached on 22 Nov1.7 %
-
52 ha reached on 18 Nov0.1 %
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 2025Inside the perimeter there were about 104 hectares of built-up land and about 14,000 residents (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)
| Day | High | Min. humidity | Peak gust | Rain | Danger (FWI) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 21 Nov | 37.3 °C | 9 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 22 Nov | 37.8 °C | 5 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 60 |
| 23 Nov | 36.9 °C | 9 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 66 |
| 24 Nov | 36.2 °C | 10 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 59 |
| 25 Nov | 37.2 °C | 11 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 56 |
| 26 Nov after | 36.6 °C | 11 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 50 |
| 27 Nov after | 36.8 °C | 10 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 28 Nov after | 37.2 °C | 11 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 58 |
| 29 Nov after | 37.1 °C | 15 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 56 |
| 30 Nov after | 36.9 °C | 24 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 1 Dec after | 35.9 °C | 30 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 2 Dec after | 34.0 °C | 17 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 3 Dec after | 35.1 °C | 11 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 4 Dec after | 33.3 °C | 9 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 5 Dec after | 34.7 °C | 6 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 55 |
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 24 November 2025 the air beside the fire reached 52 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 36: 2.4 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)
Detections table · 284Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 7,134 haKongoussiDecember 2025 · 7 days · 28 km away
- 6,886 haZimtangaJanuary 2025 · 4 days · 29 km away
- 5,954 haRolloFebruary 2026 · 4 days · 30 km away
- 8,804 haDablo15 February 2026 · 4 days · 38 km away
- 8,682 haRollo21 November 2025 · 5 days · 38 km away
- 14,807 haBarsalogho28 November 2025 · 10 days · 39 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Nasséré fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 21 November 2025 and 25 November 2025: 5 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 13,396 hectares (134.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 5 municipalities: Nasséré (7,774 ha, 56 %); Sabsé (2,372 ha, 6.8 %); Zimtanga (2,154 ha, 4.7 %); Kongoussi (1,121 ha, 1.7 %); Kaya (52 ha, 0.1 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 37.8 °C, humidity dropped to 5 % 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 Burkina Faso (OCHA COD-AB). 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
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; 2 polygons grouped in this page.
- Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 284 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.
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 OCHA COD-AB (Institut Geographique Burkina (IGB)) (Creative Commons Attribution for Intergovernmental Organisations (CC BY-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.