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Tomora fire, January 2016 Tomora, Bafoulabé, Sidibéla

Out · last detection 18 Jan 2016, 13:17 UTC

The fire started on 13 January 2016 in Tomora, Mali, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,553 hectares from heat detections, spread across 3 municipalities.

It is the 34th largest in Kayes since 2016 (of 337 with a page). Number 3 in Mali in 2016, of 45.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Tomora · 2020Tomora · 2022Diakon · 2020Diakon · 2025

Burnt area
5,553ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
6days
13 Jan 2016 – 18 Jan 2016
Municipalities hit
3
communes
Started on
13 Jan
2016
Heat detections
156
in a single hotspot: 135 MW
Danger at start
53
Extreme · FWI index
Average daily power
456MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 13 Jan18 Jan
18 Jan 2016

How it evolved, day by day

13 Jan 2016 · 8 MW · 4 14 Jan 2016 · 273 MW · 18 15 Jan 2016 · 91 MW · 31 17 Jan 2016 · 1,879 MW · 84 18 Jan 2016 · 29 MW · 19
13 Jan 14 Jan 15 Jan 17 Jan 18 Jan

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

The weather it burned in

38°high
44km/h · peak gust
8%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.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 3.5% of the area of London (56 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. Tomora where it started
    2,846 ha reached on 13 Jan
    1.4 %
  2. Bafoulabé
    2,642 ha reached on 17 Jan
    1.9 %
  3. Sidibéla
    98 ha reached on 18 Jan
    0.2 %

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)
13 Jan 37.5 °C 10 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
14 Jan 37.2 °C 8 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
15 Jan 35.6 °C 9 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
16 Jan 35.6 °C 8 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
17 Jan 35.7 °C 9 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 64
18 Jan 36.1 °C 9 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
19 Jan after 35.2 °C 11 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
20 Jan after 34.3 °C 11 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
21 Jan after 31.0 °C 12 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
22 Jan after 31.0 °C 18 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
23 Jan after 33.2 °C 11 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 63
24 Jan after 35.2 °C 9 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
25 Jan after 35.5 °C 11 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
26 Jan after 34.4 °C 11 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
27 Jan after 31.9 °C 15 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
28 Jan after 28.1 °C 26 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 6 Jan 2016
After · 25 Jan 2016

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 · 156Every 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 Tomora fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 13 January 2016 and 18 January 2016: 6 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 5,553 hectares (55.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 3 municipalities: Tomora (2,846 ha, 1.4 %); Bafoulabé (2,642 ha, 1.9 %); Sidibéla (98 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.5 °C, humidity dropped to 8 % and gusts hit 44 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 64, class 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.

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How we know this
  • Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery; 2 polygons grouped in this page.
  • Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 156 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.

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 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.