How long did the Tonka fire last?

According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 25 September 2026 to 14 October 2026 (20 days). The perimeter dates it from 25 September 2026 to 7 October 2026.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 2,153 hectares (21.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Tonka (2,165 ha, 2.8 %).

Is the Tonka fire still active?

No fire detections since 15 Oct 2026, 14:12 UTC. A lack of detections is not an official extinction.

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 40.8 °C, humidity dropped to 12 % and gusts hit 51 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 62, 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.

ML · Mali · 2026-09-25 → 2026-10-14

Tonka fire, September 2026 Tonka

Out · last detection 15 Oct 2026, 14:12 UTC

The fire started on 25 September 2026 in Tonka, Mali, and satellites saw it burning for 20 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,153 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 42th largest in Tombouctou since 2016 (of 46 with a page). Number 111 in Mali in 2026, of 138.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Tonka · 2026 Doukouria · 2025 Doukouria · 2025 Soboundou · 2020

Burnt area: 2,153ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 20days; 25 Sept 2026 – 14 Oct 2026
Municipalities hit: 1; communes
Started on: 25 Sept; 2026
Heat detections: 70; in a single hotspot: 181 MW
Danger at start: 44; Very high · FWI index
Average daily power: 123MW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 25 Sept14 Oct

Play back 15 Oct 2026

How it evolved, day by day

25 Sept 27 Sept 30 Sept 4 Oct 10 Oct 13 Oct 15 Oct

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

The weather it burned in

41°high

51km/h · peak gust

12%lowest humidity

It had gone one day without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

75% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 588 ha in 2018, 1,056 ha in 2024, 1,306 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,621 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

It burned the equivalent of 1.4% of the area of London (22 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

Tonka where it started

2,165 ha reached on 25 Sept

2.8 %

Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance runs from the point marking the centre of each area to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.

People and buildings inside the perimeter

GHSL 2025

Built-up area< 0.1 ha

Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2025, satellite-based estimate).

This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned. The GHSL 2025 epoch is a projection made from 2020 and earlier data.

Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu

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)
25 Sept	39.7 °C	12 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44
26 Sept	39.9 °C	13 %	21 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
27 Sept	40.1 °C	15 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 43
28 Sept	40.4 °C	12 %	25 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 47
29 Sept	40.0 °C	18 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 58
30 Sept	34.8 °C	40 %	44 km/h	0.8 mm	High 29
1 Oct	37.4 °C	27 %	30 km/h	0.9 mm	High 33
2 Oct	33.2 °C	39 %	49 km/h	0.4 mm	Very high 39
3 Oct	33.6 °C	32 %	41 km/h	0.2 mm	Very high 41
4 Oct	39.8 °C	19 %	51 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 62
5 Oct	38.0 °C	24 %	34 km/h	2.7 mm	High 28
6 Oct	40.8 °C	14 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 50
7 Oct	38.7 °C	23 %	29 km/h	1.2 mm	High 33
8 Oct	39.5 °C	20 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
9 Oct	39.7 °C	18 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 43
10 Oct	38.9 °C	19 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 50
11 Oct	32.8 °C	31 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
12 Oct	36.4 °C	25 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 46
13 Oct	37.2 °C	19 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 46
14 Oct	38.0 °C	15 %	25 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 48
15 Oct after	39.0 °C	13 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 47
16 Oct after	39.4 °C	16 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 51
17 Oct after	40.3 °C	13 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 50
18 Oct after	39.7 °C	14 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 57

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 18 Sept 2026

After · 21 Oct 2026

Before After

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 · Copernicus

On 11 October 2026 the air beside the fire reached 69 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 49: 3.3 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak69 µg/m³

Days over the guideline23 days

PM10228 µg/m³

Optical depth0.77

WHO 15

23242526272829301234567891011121314151617

Good Fair Moderate Poor Very poor Extremely poor

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 · 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 time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Mali ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Tonka fire last?: According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 25 September 2026 to 14 October 2026 (20 days). The perimeter dates it from 25 September 2026 to 7 October 2026.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 2,153 hectares (21.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Tonka (2,165 ha, 2.8 %).
Is the Tonka fire still active?: No fire detections since 15 Oct 2026, 14:12 UTC. A lack of detections is not an official extinction.
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 40.8 °C, humidity dropped to 12 % and gusts hit 51 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 62, 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

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

History of this page Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.

No changes since 24 October 2026.

RSS Changes to this page

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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What do you think is wrong?

Dates or duration Place or towns Burned area Name It was not a wildfire Same fire as another page Something else

What really happened?

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How we know this

Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery.
Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 25 September 2026 to 7 October 2026. 70 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.
Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2025, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.

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.

Where it burned