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SN · Senegal · →

Pakour fire, February 2019 Pakour

Out · last detection 8 Mar 2019, 02:38 UTC

The fire started on 27 February 2019 in Pakour, Senegal, and satellites saw it burning for 10 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,828 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 20th largest in Kolda since 2016 (of 195 with a page). Number 10 in Senegal in 2019, of 57.

The power measured by the satellite is low (18.5 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
4,828ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
10days
27 Feb 2019 – 8 Mar 2019
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
27 Feb
2019
Heat detections
163
in a single hotspot: 19 MW
Danger at start
65
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
600MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

8 Mar 2019
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 27 Feb8 Mar

How it evolved, day by day

27282345678

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

The weather it burned in

40°high
49km/h · peak gust
9%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

10% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 483 ha in 2017.

What happened to each town

  1. Pakour where it started
    4,857 ha reached on 27 Feb
    4.0 %

Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance is from the town centre to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.

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)
27 Feb 35.2 °C 13 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 65
28 Feb 35.1 °C 12 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 69
1 Mar 34.0 °C 12 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 70
2 Mar 35.8 °C 10 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
3 Mar 37.2 °C 10 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
4 Mar 37.6 °C 10 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
5 Mar 38.9 °C 10 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
6 Mar 40.3 °C 9 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
7 Mar 39.7 °C 9 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
8 Mar 38.4 °C 10 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
9 Mar after 38.2 °C 13 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
10 Mar after 38.9 °C 13 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
11 Mar after 40.6 °C 11 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 67
12 Mar after 39.8 °C 11 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 66
13 Mar after 39.2 °C 11 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 71
14 Mar after 39.6 °C 9 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 68
15 Mar after 40.6 °C 11 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
16 Mar after 41.2 °C 10 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
17 Mar after 41.0 °C 12 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
18 Mar after 40.6 °C 14 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 20 Feb 2019
After · 15 Mar 2019

If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.

Detections table · 163Every 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 Pakour fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 27 February 2019 and 8 March 2019: 10 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 4,828 hectares (48.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Pakour (4,857 ha, 4.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 40.3 °C, humidity dropped to 9 % and gusts hit 49 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 70, class Very 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.

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

Satellite cross-check

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.

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.