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Sindian fire, March 2023 Sindian

Out · last detection 11 Mar 2023, 14:38 UTC

The fire started on 1 March 2023 in Sindian, Senegal, and satellites saw it burning for 10 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,200 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 3th largest in Ziguinchor since 2016 (of 40 with a page). Number 9 in Senegal in 2023, of 83.

Burnt area
5,200ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
10days
1 Mar 2023 – 10 Mar 2023
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
1 Mar
2023
Heat detections
254
in a single hotspot: 55 MW
Danger at start
44
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
2.3GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

11 Mar 2023
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 1 Mar10 Mar

How it evolved, day by day

1234567891011

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

The weather it burned in

41°high
41km/h · peak gust
13%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

98% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,308 ha in 2016, 82 ha in 2017, 123 ha in 2018, 1,766 ha in 2019, 2,044 ha in 2020, 3,771 ha in 2021, 3,461 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 5,120 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Sindian where it started
    5,232 ha reached on 23 Feb
    3.5 %

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)
1 Mar 38.2 °C 20 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
2 Mar 38.4 °C 21 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
3 Mar 37.7 °C 18 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
4 Mar 38.1 °C 23 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
5 Mar 37.6 °C 24 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
6 Mar 36.0 °C 26 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
7 Mar 40.0 °C 18 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
8 Mar 41.0 °C 13 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
9 Mar 39.2 °C 17 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
10 Mar 39.9 °C 16 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
11 Mar after 40.0 °C 17 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
12 Mar after 40.0 °C 16 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
13 Mar after 38.5 °C 28 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
14 Mar after 39.2 °C 20 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
15 Mar after 36.6 °C 24 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
16 Mar after 35.2 °C 31 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
17 Mar after 36.2 °C 32 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
18 Mar after 37.1 °C 30 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
19 Mar after 37.2 °C 32 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
20 Mar after 37.2 °C 26 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 22 Feb 2023
After · 17 Mar 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.

Detections table · 254Every 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 Senegal ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Sindian fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 1 March 2023 and 10 March 2023: 10 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 5,200 hectares (52.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Sindian (5,232 ha, 3.5 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 41.0 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 41 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 62, class Extreme.
Where does this data come from?
From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Senegal (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.

Emergency number: 18

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.

Report an error
What do you think is wrong?

We will only use your email to reply about this report. Privacy. This is not an emergency service: if there is a fire now, call 18.

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 3.0 Intergovernmental Organisations (CC BY 3.0 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.