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BF · Burkina Faso · –

Seytenga fire, 2 November 2023 Seytenga

Out · last detection 5 Nov 2023, 13:15 UTC

The fire started on 2 November 2023 in Seytenga, Burkina Faso, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 1,012 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 126th largest in Liptako since 2016 (of 129 with a page). Number 257 in Burkina Faso in 2023, of 261.

The power measured by the satellite is low (7.4 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: Barsalogho · 2021Déou · 2023Dori · 2025Seytenga · 2025

Burnt area
1,012ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
4days
2 Nov 2023 – 5 Nov 2023
Municipalities hit
1
communes
Started on
2 Nov
2023
Heat detections
21
in a single hotspot: 7 MW
Danger at start
54
Extreme · FWI index
Average daily power
44MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 2 Nov5 Nov
5 Nov 2023

How it evolved, day by day

3 Nov 2023 · 83 MW · 20 5 Nov 2023 · 5 MW · 1
3 Nov 5 Nov

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
29km/h · peak gust
9%lowest humidity

It had gone 46 days 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.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 0.6% of the area of London (10 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. Seytenga where it started
    1,018 ha reached on 3 Nov
    1.2 %

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 area0.89 ha
Residents≈ 200

Inside the perimeter there were about 0.89 hectares of built-up land and about 200 residents (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)

Started with Very dry air: 56 % of the area in Burkina Faso

Day High Min. humidity Peak gust Rain Danger (FWI)
2 Nov 38.8 °C 9 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
3 Nov 39.2 °C 12 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
4 Nov 38.7 °C 21 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
5 Nov 39.5 °C 18 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
6 Nov after 39.4 °C 11 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
7 Nov after 39.2 °C 9 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
8 Nov after 38.7 °C 10 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
9 Nov after 38.6 °C 12 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
10 Nov after 38.2 °C 11 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
11 Nov after 39.0 °C 7 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 64
12 Nov after 38.5 °C 7 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 65
13 Nov after 38.1 °C 6 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 71
14 Nov after 37.0 °C 7 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 68
15 Nov after 37.8 °C 9 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 69

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 54.2, a minimum humidity of 9% and 46 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 15.

FWI at the start 54.2
Minimum humidity 9 %
Days without rain 46
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Barsalogho fire, November 2021
3,707 ha 5 days FWI 52.9 Min. humidity 9 % 143 km away, in 2021

First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.

See its page Compare with this fire

What happened to them

3 days
median duration
2,661 ha
median area
100 %
went past 1,000 ha
—
rain at the end (median; 0 of 15 had it)

It stayed below its twins: 1,012 ha against a median of 2,661 ha. It lasted 4 days, against 3 days.

In none of them did 1 mm fall in the ten days after the end: they all went out without rain.

This is a bank of analogues: it shows what usually happens, not what will happen. With fewer than 15 twins we give no figures. How we calculate it

How it ended

—first rain
—no rain in ten days
29km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 5 Nov, and not even 1 mm fell in the following ten days: it went out without rain. None of its 15 twins had rain when they ended.

Weather on this page: Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)

How a twin is chosen

  • Same area: fires that have already ended, less than 250 km from this one, since 2016.
  • Same start: we compare the FWI on the first day, the minimum humidity that day and the run of days without rain before it. The slider sets how much they may differ.
  • Only pages with final weather data (ERA5 reanalysis) calculated in the same way as this fire’s; agricultural and grass burns and pages with data under review are left out.
  • Fires burning at the same time as this one (a week before or after) are left out: they share the same spell of weather and do not count as a precedent.
  • They are sorted by similarity, and the outlines of the first five are drawn.

How we calculate it

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 26 Oct 2023
After · 12 Nov 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 5 November 2023 the air beside the fire reached 34 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 29: 1.9 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak34 µg/m³
Days over the guideline5 days
PM10114 µg/m³
Optical depth0.52
31 Oct2 Nov4 Nov6 Nov
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 · 21Every 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 Burkina Faso

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Seytenga fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 2 November 2023 to 5 November 2023 (4 days). The perimeter dates it from 2 November 2023 to 3 November 2023.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 1,012 hectares (10.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Seytenga (1,018 ha, 1.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 39.5 °C, humidity dropped to 9 % and gusts hit 29 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 54, class Extreme.
Where does this data come from?
From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Burkina Faso (OCHA COD-AB). It is not an official report.
How did the fires that started in similar weather in this area end?
Fires less than 250 km away that started since 2016 with a similar FWI, humidity and dry spell: 15. Their median duration was 3 days and their median area 2,661 ha; 100 % went past 1,000 ha. In none of them did 1 mm fall in the ten days after the end: they all went out without rain.

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 · 1 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
  1. Last day with fire: 3 November 2023 → 5 November 2023.

RSS Changes to this page With cross-checks and a citable version

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
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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 2 November 2023 to 3 November 2023. 21 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 OCHA COD-AB (Institut Geographique Burkina (IGB)) (Creative Commons Attribution for Intergovernmental Organisations (CC BY-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.