How long did the Pignari fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 5 December 2025 and 8 December 2025: 4 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 5,064 hectares (50.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 3 municipalities: Bara Sara (3,368 ha, 5.3 %); Pignari (1,591 ha, 3.4 %); Timiri (136 ha, 0.2 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 33.9 °C, humidity dropped to 12 % and gusts hit 31 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 50, class Very high.

Where does this data come from?

From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Mali (geoBoundaries). It is not an official report.

ML · Mali · 2025-12-05 → 2025-12-08

Pignari fire, December 2025 Bara Sara, Pignari, Timiri

Out · last detection 8 Dec 2025, 01:46 UTC

The fire started on 5 December 2025 in Pignari, Mali, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,064 hectares from heat detections, spread across 3 municipalities.

It is the 19th largest in Mopti since 2016 (of 160 with a page). Number 49 in Mali in 2025, of 282.

The power measured by the satellite is low (22.4 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: 5,064ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 4days; 5 Dec 2025 – 8 Dec 2025
Municipalities hit: 3; communes
Started on: 5 Dec; 2025
Heat detections: 79; in a single hotspot: 22 MW
Danger at start: 48; Very high · FWI index
Energy released: 365MW; sum of detected power

Play back 8 Dec 2025

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 5 Dec8 Dec

How it evolved, day by day

5678

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

The weather it burned in

34°high

31km/h · peak gust

12%lowest humidity

It had gone 49 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 7.5 mm on 15 Dec.

This area had burned before

36% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 821 ha in 2022, 324 ha in 2023, 1,329 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,801 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

Bara Sara

3,368 ha reached on 5 Dec

5.3 %
Pignari where it started

1,591 ha reached on 5 Dec

3.4 %
Timiri

136 ha reached on 8 Dec

0.2 %

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)
5 Dec	32.2 °C	12 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 48
6 Dec	32.6 °C	12 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 46
7 Dec	32.9 °C	12 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 50
8 Dec	33.9 °C	13 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 46
9 Dec after	32.8 °C	15 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 48
10 Dec after	33.2 °C	14 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 45
11 Dec after	32.8 °C	15 %	23 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 43
12 Dec after	32.1 °C	17 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 49
13 Dec after	30.0 °C	22 %	19 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
14 Dec after	26.9 °C	29 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
15 Dec after	21.8 °C	52 %	23 km/h	7.5 mm	Very low 3

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 28 Nov 2025

After · 15 Dec 2025

Before After

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 5 December 2025 the air beside the fire reached 58 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 43: 2.8 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak58 µg/m³

Days over the guideline9 days

PM10320 µg/m³

Optical depth0.28

WHO 15

34567891011

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 · 79Every 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 time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Mali ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Pignari fire last?: GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 5 December 2025 and 8 December 2025: 4 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 5,064 hectares (50.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 3 municipalities: Bara Sara (3,368 ha, 5.3 %); Pignari (1,591 ha, 3.4 %); Timiri (136 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 33.9 °C, humidity dropped to 12 % and gusts hit 31 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 50, class Very high.
Where does this data come from?: From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Mali (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.

Satellite cross-check

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

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.

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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 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)). 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.

Where it burned