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Sagabala fire, November 2023 Sagabala

Out · last detection 5 Dec 2023, 13:53 UTC

The fire started on 28 November 2023 in Sagabala, Mali, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,626 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 60th largest in Koulikouro since 2016 (of 125 with a page). Number 27 in Mali in 2023, of 56.

The power measured by the satellite is low (14.2 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: Sagabala · 2026Madina · 2020Madina · 2025Sagabala · 2025

Burnt area
2,626ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
8days
28 Nov 2023 – 5 Dec 2023
Municipalities hit
1
communes
Started on
28 Nov
2023
Heat detections
65
in a single hotspot: 14 MW
Danger at start
51
Extreme · FWI index
Average daily power
42MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 28 Nov5 Dec
5 Dec 2023

How it evolved, day by day

30 Nov 2023 · 20 MW · 5 1 Dec 2023 · 58 MW · 12 2 Dec 2023 · 75 MW · 24 3 Dec 2023 · 10 MW · 7 4 Dec 2023 · 42 MW · 13 5 Dec 2023 · 46 MW · 4
30 Nov 1 Dec 2 Dec 3 Dec 4 Dec 5 Dec

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
40km/h · peak gust
8%lowest humidity

It had gone 30 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

25% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2 ha in 2020, 288 ha in 2021, 358 ha in 2022.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 1.7% of the area of London (26 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. Sagabala where it started
    2,640 ha reached on 30 Nov
    0.7 %

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 2025
Built-up area< 0.1 ha
Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2025, 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. The GHSL 2025 epoch is a projection made from 2020 and earlier data.

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)
30 Nov 39.4 °C 13 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
1 Dec 39.5 °C 11 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
2 Dec 38.7 °C 12 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 63
3 Dec 38.6 °C 8 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
4 Dec 37.6 °C 11 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
5 Dec 37.0 °C 8 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
6 Dec after 38.0 °C 7 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
7 Dec after 38.6 °C 10 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
8 Dec after 38.2 °C 9 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
9 Dec after 36.2 °C 10 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 66
10 Dec after 36.0 °C 10 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
11 Dec after 36.5 °C 9 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
12 Dec after 36.6 °C 10 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
13 Dec after 34.8 °C 13 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
14 Dec after 34.3 °C 12 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
15 Dec after 34.1 °C 12 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 21 Nov 2023
After · 12 Dec 2023

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 8 December 2023 the air beside the fire reached 38 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 32: 2.1 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak38 µg/m³
Days over the guideline10 days
PM10269 µg/m³
Optical depth0.45
28293012345678
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 · 65Every 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 Mali ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Sagabala fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 28 November 2023 to 5 December 2023 (8 days). The perimeter dates it from 30 November 2023 to 5 December 2023.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 2,626 hectares (26.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Sagabala (2,640 ha, 0.7 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 39.5 °C, humidity dropped to 8 % and gusts hit 40 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 63, class Extreme.
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

History of this page Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.

No changes since 24 October 2026.

RSS Changes to this page

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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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 30 November 2023 to 5 December 2023. 65 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 2025, 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 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.