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Ségué fire, 22 January 2021 Ségué

Out · last detection 29 Jan 2021, 02:44 UTC

The fire started on 22 January 2021 in Ségué, Mali, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 10,294 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 6th largest in Mopti since 2016 (of 160 with a page). Number 3 in Mali in 2021, of 58.

Burnt area
10,294ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
7days
22 Jan 2021 – 28 Jan 2021
Municipalities hit
1
communes
Started on
22 Jan
2021
Heat detections
351
in a single hotspot: 34 MW
Danger at start
58
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
1.7GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

29 Jan 2021
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 22 Jan28 Jan

How it evolved, day by day

23242526272829

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
42km/h · peak gust
6%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

36% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 893 ha in 2019, 2,856 ha in 2020.

What happened to each town

  1. Ségué where it started
    10,352 ha reached on 23 Jan
    9.0 %

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 Jan 30.1 °C 11 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
23 Jan 31.0 °C 12 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
24 Jan 31.9 °C 9 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
25 Jan 32.6 °C 8 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
26 Jan 33.6 °C 6 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
27 Jan 33.6 °C 7 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
28 Jan 34.0 °C 6 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
29 Jan after 33.6 °C 10 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
30 Jan after 33.4 °C 11 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
31 Jan after 33.2 °C 11 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
1 Feb after 32.2 °C 10 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
2 Feb after 32.8 °C 8 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
3 Feb after 34.5 °C 7 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
4 Feb after 35.2 °C 9 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
5 Feb after 36.3 °C 9 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
6 Feb after 36.8 °C 11 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
7 Feb after 30.5 °C 18 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 15 Jan 2021
After · 4 Feb 2021

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 · 351Every 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 22 January 2021 and 28 January 2021: 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 10,294 hectares (102.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Ségué (10,352 ha, 9.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 34.0 °C, humidity dropped to 6 % and gusts hit 42 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 59, 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.