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SN · Senegal · –

Orkadiere fire, 31 October 2022 Orkadiere

Out · last detection 6 Nov 2022, 02:33 UTC

The fire started on 31 October 2022 in Orkadiere, Senegal, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 7,533 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 3th largest in Matam since 2016 (of 70 with a page). Number 10 in Senegal in 2022, of 90.

Burnt area
7,533ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
6days
31 Oct 2022 – 5 Nov 2022
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
31 Oct
2022
Heat detections
256
in a single hotspot: 35 MW
Danger at start
36
High · FWI index
Average daily power
218MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 31 Oct5 Nov
6 Nov 2022

How it evolved, day by day

31 Oct 2022 · 26 MW · 1 1 Nov 2022 · 527 MW · 67 2 Nov 2022 · 648 MW · 106 3 Nov 2022 · 174 MW · 58 4 Nov 2022 · 141 MW · 21 5 Nov 2022 · 4 MW · 1 6 Nov 2022 · 4 MW · 2
31 Oct 2 Nov 4 Nov 6 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
41km/h · peak gust
15%lowest humidity

It had gone 11 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

18% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 416 ha in 2017, 885 ha in 2020, 44 ha in 2021.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 4.8% of the area of London (75 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. Orkadiere where it started
    7,572 ha reached on 1 Nov
    2.9 %

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 2020
Built-up area< 0.1 ha
Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2020, 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.

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)
31 Oct 38.2 °C 21 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
1 Nov 38.1 °C 20 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
2 Nov 38.3 °C 18 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
3 Nov 37.7 °C 17 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
4 Nov 37.6 °C 15 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
5 Nov 37.0 °C 17 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
6 Nov after 37.2 °C 20 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
7 Nov after 37.2 °C 23 % 17 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
8 Nov after 36.6 °C 26 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
9 Nov after 37.9 °C 16 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
10 Nov after 36.8 °C 17 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
11 Nov after 36.0 °C 19 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
12 Nov after 35.5 °C 20 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
13 Nov after 36.6 °C 20 % 14 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
14 Nov after 35.7 °C 27 % 17 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
15 Nov after 34.8 °C 38 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 36

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 36.1, a minimum humidity of 21% and 11 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 27.

FWI at the start 36.1
Minimum humidity 21 %
Days without rain 11
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Sinthiou Banambe/Wouro Sidy fire, October 2023
2,654 ha 5 days FWI 36.9 Min. humidity 19 % 86 km away, in 2023

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

What happened to them

4 days
median duration
2,424 ha
median area
100 %
went past 1,000 ha
1.5 mm
rain at the end (median; 1 of 27 had it)

It was 3.1 times larger than the median of its twins and lasted 6 days, against 4 days.

None of its 27 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 26 of 27, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 1.5 mm.

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 5 Nov, and not even 1 mm fell in the following ten days: it went out without rain. Twins with rain when they ended: 1 of 27, with a median of 1.5 mm.

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 · 24 Oct 2022
After · 12 Nov 2022

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 2 November 2022 the air beside the fire reached 272 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 149: 9.9 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak272 µg/m³
Days over the guideline10 days
PM10472 µg/m³
Optical depth1.70
29 Oct31 Oct2 Nov4 Nov6 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 · 256Every 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 Orkadiere fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 31 October 2022 to 5 November 2022 (6 days). The perimeter dates it from 31 October 2022 to 4 November 2022.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 7,533 hectares (75.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Orkadiere (7,572 ha, 2.9 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 38.3 °C, humidity dropped to 15 % and gusts hit 41 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 47, class Very high.
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: 27. Their median duration was 4 days and their median area 2,424 ha; 100 % went past 1,000 ha. None of its 27 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 26 of 27, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 1.5 mm.

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: 4 November 2022 → 5 November 2022.

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 31 October 2022 to 4 November 2022. 256 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 2020, 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.