Pakour fire, 22 February 2025 Pakour, Sare Coly Sallé
The fire started on 22 February 2025 in Pakour, Senegal, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,786 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 84th largest in Kolda since 2016 (of 195 with a page). Number 60 in Senegal in 2025, of 112.
- Burnt area
- 2,786ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 5days
- 22 Feb 2025 – 26 Feb 2025
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- districts
- Started on
- 22 Feb
- 2025
- Heat detections
- 67
- in a single hotspot: 123 MW
- Danger at start
- 64
- Extreme · FWI index
- Energy released
- 684MW
- sum of detected power
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 more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
47% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,224 ha in 2019, 229 ha in 2022, 644 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,298 ha that had burned before.
What happened to each town
-
Pakour where it started2,757 ha reached on 22 Feb2.3 %
-
47 ha0.0 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 22 Feb | 39.4 °C | 16 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 64 |
| 23 Feb | 38.4 °C | 14 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 65 |
| 24 Feb | 37.8 °C | 13 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 63 |
| 25 Feb | 37.2 °C | 14 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 68 |
| 26 Feb | 36.9 °C | 12 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 65 |
| 27 Feb after | 38.2 °C | 9 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 58 |
| 28 Feb after | 39.4 °C | 13 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 1 Mar after | 38.0 °C | 16 % | 21 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 2 Mar after | 38.1 °C | 16 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 57 |
| 3 Mar after | 34.8 °C | 25 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 4 Mar after | 36.8 °C | 22 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 5 Mar after | 38.0 °C | 24 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 6 Mar after | 37.2 °C | 24 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 7 Mar after | 39.4 °C | 20 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 50 |
| 8 Mar after | 40.3 °C | 17 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 56 |
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 28 February 2025 the air beside the fire reached 140 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 102: 6.8 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 · 67Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Pakour fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 22 February 2025 and 26 February 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 2,786 hectares (27.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Pakour (2,757 ha, 2.3 %); Sare Coly Sallé (47 ha, 0.0 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 39.4 °C, humidity dropped to 12 % and gusts hit 46 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 68, 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.
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
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.