Pakour fire, 15 February 2026 Pakour
The fire started on 15 February 2026 in Pakour, Senegal, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,096 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 62th largest in Kolda since 2016 (of 195 with a page). Number 60 in Senegal in 2026, of 126.
The power measured by the satellite is low (25.2 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.
Compare with…
Suggestions: Pirada · 2022Pirada · 2019Pirada · 2017Pakour · 2019
- Burnt area
- 3,096ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 5days
- 15 Feb 2026 – 19 Feb 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- districts
- Started on
- 15 Feb
- 2026
- Heat detections
- 52
- in a single hotspot: 25 MW
- Danger at start
- 50
- Very high · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 54MW
- 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 37 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
39% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 56 ha in 2017, 564 ha in 2019, 762 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,202 ha that had burned before.
- 759 ha Pirada fire, January 2022 1,028 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 564 ha Pirada fire, February 2019 1,439 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 56 ha Pirada fire, January 2017 1,019 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
-
Pakour where it started1,545 ha reached on 10 Feb1.3 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 15 Feb | 39.2 °C | 14 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 50 |
| 16 Feb | 38.8 °C | 12 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 56 |
| 17 Feb | 38.4 °C | 9 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 61 |
| 18 Feb | 38.7 °C | 14 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 56 |
| 19 Feb | 39.8 °C | 16 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 20 Feb after | 39.4 °C | 16 % | 21 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 21 Feb after | 38.2 °C | 22 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 22 Feb after | 40.3 °C | 15 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 23 Feb after | 39.2 °C | 12 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 55 |
| 24 Feb after | 38.4 °C | 15 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 25 Feb after | 39.3 °C | 15 % | 21 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 26 Feb after | 38.9 °C | 14 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 50 |
| 27 Feb after | 36.7 °C | 17 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 28 Feb after | 33.3 °C | 23 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 1 Mar after | 34.7 °C | 15 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
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 17 February 2026 the air beside the fire reached 150 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 95: 6.3 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 · 52Every 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 15 February 2026 and 19 February 2026: 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 3,096 hectares (31.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Pakour (1,545 ha, 1.3 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 39.8 °C, humidity dropped to 9 % and gusts hit 41 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 61, 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
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. 52 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.
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.