Skip to content
worldfires
ML · Mali · →

Tessit fire, March 2023 Tessit

Out · last detection 6 Mar 2023, 12:51 UTC

The fire started on 5 March 2023 in Tessit, Mali, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,001 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 63th largest in Gao since 2016 (of 135 with a page). Number 19 in Mali in 2023, of 56.

The power measured by the satellite is low (22.6 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Burnt area
3,001ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
2days
5 Mar 2023 – 6 Mar 2023
Municipalities hit
1
communes
Started on
5 Mar
2023
Heat detections
70
in a single hotspot: 23 MW
Danger at start
77
Very extreme · FWI index
Energy released
474MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 5 Mar6 Mar

How it evolved, day by day

6

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
43km/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

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

What happened to each town

  1. Tessit where it started
    3,022 ha reached on 6 Mar
    0.6 %

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)
5 Mar 40.4 °C 7 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 77
6 Mar 39.6 °C 6 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 83
7 Mar after 38.9 °C 6 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 69
8 Mar after 38.3 °C 5 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 77
9 Mar after 41.0 °C 6 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 67
10 Mar after 41.4 °C 8 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 66
11 Mar after 41.4 °C 10 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 73
12 Mar after 40.6 °C 8 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 80
13 Mar after 40.2 °C 5 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 74
14 Mar after 39.3 °C 6 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 65
15 Mar after 40.2 °C 7 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 71
16 Mar after 39.7 °C 6 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 26 Feb 2023
After · 13 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 · 70Every 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 Tessit fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 5 March 2023 and 6 March 2023: 2 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 3,001 hectares (30.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Tessit (3,022 ha, 0.6 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 40.4 °C, humidity dropped to 6 % and gusts hit 43 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 83, class Very 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.

Report an error
What do you think is wrong?

We will only use your email to reply about this report. Privacy.

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.