Tansarga fire, 11 November 2025 Lôgbou, Tansarga, Diapaga
The fire started on 11 November 2025 in Tansarga, Burkina Faso, and satellites saw it burning for 18 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 14,489 hectares from heat detections, spread across 3 municipalities.
It is the largest fire in Tapoa since 2016 (of 259 with a page). Number 11 in Burkina Faso in 2025, of 609.
- Burnt area
- 14,489ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 18days
- 11 Nov 2025 – 28 Nov 2025
- Municipalities hit
- 3
- communes
- Started on
- 11 Nov
- 2025
- Heat detections
- 369
- in a single hotspot: 79 MW
- Danger at start
- 37
- High · FWI index
- Energy released
- 4.7GW
- 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.
The weather it burned in
It had gone 29 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
61% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,317 ha in 2016, 2,694 ha in 2017, 1,098 ha in 2019, 2,617 ha in 2020, 1,933 ha in 2021, 757 ha in 2022, 1,189 ha in 2023, 1,502 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 8,842 ha that had burned before.
- 1,180 ha Lôgbou fire, November 2023 1,509 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,164 ha Lôgbou fire, January 2021 1,416 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,111 ha Banikoara fire, November 2024 2,880 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 951 ha Lôgbou fire, December 2020 2,943 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 856 ha Banikoara fire, November 2017 5,973 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 849 ha Tansarga fire, December 2020 1,004 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 784 ha Lôgbou fire, November 2019 1,777 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 769 ha Tansarga fire, November 2021 5,491 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
6,490 ha reached on 10 Nov2.8 %
-
Tansarga where it started6,244 ha reached on 9 Nov7.5 %
-
920 ha reached on 13 Nov0.3 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 11 Nov | 37.4 °C | 23 % | 19 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 12 Nov | 37.7 °C | 19 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 13 Nov | 36.9 °C | 22 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 14 Nov | 37.2 °C | 17 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 15 Nov | 36.6 °C | 18 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 16 Nov | 35.5 °C | 20 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 17 Nov | 35.5 °C | 21 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 18 Nov | 35.4 °C | 18 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 19 Nov | 37.2 °C | 16 % | 21 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 20 Nov | 37.8 °C | 17 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 21 Nov | 37.9 °C | 21 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 22 Nov | 38.2 °C | 17 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 23 Nov | 36.7 °C | 14 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 24 Nov | 37.9 °C | 10 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 25 Nov | 37.7 °C | 13 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 26 Nov | 38.0 °C | 16 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 27 Nov | 37.9 °C | 23 % | 17 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 28 Nov | 38.1 °C | 20 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 29 Nov after | 37.6 °C | 25 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 30 Nov after | 36.0 °C | 27 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 1 Dec after | 36.4 °C | 17 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 2 Dec after | 36.5 °C | 24 % | 18 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 3 Dec after | 37.5 °C | 18 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 4 Dec after | 35.4 °C | 15 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 5 Dec after | 37.1 °C | 11 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 6 Dec after | 37.5 °C | 14 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 7 Dec after | 36.6 °C | 23 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 8 Dec after | 35.4 °C | 15 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
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.
The smoke
CAMS · CopernicusOn 28 November 2025 the air beside the fire reached 76 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 57: 3.8 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
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 · 369Every 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 Tansarga fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 11 November 2025 and 28 November 2025: 18 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 14,489 hectares (144.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 3 municipalities: Lôgbou (6,490 ha, 2.8 %); Tansarga (6,244 ha, 7.5 %); Diapaga (920 ha, 0.3 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 38.2 °C, humidity dropped to 10 % and gusts hit 37 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 53, 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.
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 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.