Soye fire, 5 March 2021 Soye
The fire started on 5 March 2021 in Soye, Mali, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,210 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 126th largest in Mopti since 2016 (of 160 with a page). Number 43 in Mali in 2021, of 58.
- Burnt area
- 2,210ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 4days
- 5 Mar 2021 – 8 Mar 2021
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- communes
- Started on
- 5 Mar
- 2021
- Heat detections
- 70
- in a single hotspot: 50 MW
- Energy released
- 691MW
- sum of detected power
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
This area had burned before
100% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,774 ha in 2016, 1,165 ha in 2017, 1,915 ha in 2019, 1,185 ha in 2020. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,223 ha that had burned before.
- 1,291 ha Soye fire, March 2019 2,276 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,185 ha Soye fire, February 2020 2,734 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,165 ha Soye fire, February 2017 3,448 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,048 ha Soye fire, April 2016 3,287 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 725 ha Soye fire, March 2016 2,341 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
Soye where it started2,224 ha reached on 6 Mar2.4 %
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.
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
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 · 70Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Soye fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 5 March 2021 and 8 March 2021: 4 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 2,210 hectares (22.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Soye (2,224 ha, 2.4 %).
- 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.
Report an error
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.