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Tomora fire, January 2022 Tomora, Diakon

Out · last detection 20 Jan 2022, 03:10 UTC

The fire started on 16 January 2022 in Tomora, Mali, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,647 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 162th largest in Kayes since 2016 (of 333 with a page). Number 30 in Mali in 2022, of 67.

The power measured by the satellite is low (21.0 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
2,647ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
5days
16 Jan 2022 – 20 Jan 2022
Municipalities hit
2
communes
Started on
16 Jan
2022
Heat detections
62
in a single hotspot: 21 MW
Energy released
244MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

20 Jan 2022
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 16 Jan20 Jan

How it evolved, day by day

16171820

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

This area had burned before

38% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 196 ha in 2016, 813 ha in 2019, 62 ha in 2021. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,000 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Tomora where it started
    2,485 ha reached on 16 Jan
    1.3 %
  2. Diakon
    181 ha
    0.1 %

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.

Before · 9 Jan 2022
After · 27 Jan 2022

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 · 62Every 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 16 January 2022 and 20 January 2022: 5 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 2,647 hectares (26.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Tomora (2,485 ha, 1.3 %); Diakon (181 ha, 0.1 %).
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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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.