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Ségué fire, February 2020 Timissa, Ségué, Lanfiala

Out · last detection 9 Feb 2020, 13:08 UTC

The fire started on 3 February 2020 in Ségué, Mali, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 18,490 hectares from heat detections, spread across 4 municipalities.

It is the 2th largest in Mopti since 2016 (of 160 with a page). The largest in Mali in 2020, of 61.

Burnt area
18,490ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
7days
3 Feb 2020 – 9 Feb 2020
Municipalities hit
4
communes
Started on
3 Feb
2020
Heat detections
585
in a single hotspot: 197 MW
Danger at start
56
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
4.0GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

9 Feb 2020
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 3 Feb9 Feb

How it evolved, day by day

3456789

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

The weather it burned in

32°high
45km/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

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

What happened to each town

  1. Timissa
    9,665 ha reached on 4 Feb
    7.7 %
  2. Ségué where it started
    4,073 ha reached on 3 Feb
    3.6 %
  3. Lanfiala
    2,633 ha reached on 3 Feb
    7.3 %
  4. Sokoura
    2,221 ha reached on 5 Feb
    2.5 %

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)
3 Feb 32.4 °C 9 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
4 Feb 32.1 °C 9 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
5 Feb 32.3 °C 10 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 64
6 Feb 31.5 °C 11 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
7 Feb 31.6 °C 9 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
8 Feb 31.8 °C 10 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
9 Feb 31.6 °C 12 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
10 Feb after 32.0 °C 14 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
11 Feb after 30.6 °C 8 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 64
12 Feb after 32.4 °C 9 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 63
13 Feb after 31.9 °C 10 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
14 Feb after 33.0 °C 9 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
15 Feb after 34.2 °C 9 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
16 Feb after 34.9 °C 9 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
17 Feb after 35.6 °C 10 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
18 Feb after 35.1 °C 11 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
19 Feb after 35.6 °C 13 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 27 Jan 2020
After · 16 Feb 2020

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 · 585Every 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 Ségué fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 3 February 2020 and 9 February 2020: 7 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 18,490 hectares (184.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 4 municipalities: Timissa (9,665 ha, 7.7 %); Ségué (4,073 ha, 3.6 %); Lanfiala (2,633 ha, 7.3 %); Sokoura (2,221 ha, 2.5 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 32.4 °C, humidity dropped to 9 % and gusts hit 45 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 64, 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

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.