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Anka fire, 6 December 2020 Anka

Out · last detection 12 Dec 2020, 12:10 UTC

The fire started on 6 December 2020 in Anka, Nigeria, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,239 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 84th largest in Zamfara since 2016 (of 208 with a page). Number 46 in Nigeria in 2020, of 150.

The power measured by the satellite is low (19.0 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
3,239ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
6days
6 Dec 2020 – 11 Dec 2020
Municipalities hit
1
local government areas
Started on
6 Dec
2020
Heat detections
131
in a single hotspot: 19 MW
Danger at start
39
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
501MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

12 Dec 2020
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 6 Dec11 Dec

How it evolved, day by day

6789101112

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

The weather it burned in

36°high
40km/h · peak gust
18%lowest humidity

It had gone 49 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

84% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 846 ha in 2016, 1,464 ha in 2017, 1,121 ha in 2018, 1,308 ha in 2019. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,713 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Anka where it started
    3,257 ha reached on 5 Dec
    1.2 %

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)
6 Dec 35.3 °C 23 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
7 Dec 35.4 °C 18 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
8 Dec 35.4 °C 18 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
9 Dec 35.2 °C 21 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
10 Dec 35.4 °C 18 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
11 Dec 35.5 °C 20 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
12 Dec after 36.1 °C 19 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
13 Dec after 35.3 °C 18 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
14 Dec after 35.4 °C 18 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
15 Dec after 34.5 °C 19 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
16 Dec after 33.3 °C 20 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
17 Dec after 30.9 °C 21 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
18 Dec after 31.1 °C 24 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
19 Dec after 32.1 °C 26 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
20 Dec after 32.6 °C 23 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
21 Dec after 32.7 °C 22 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 29 Nov 2020
After · 18 Dec 2020

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 · 131Every 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 Nigeria ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Anka fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 6 December 2020 and 11 December 2020: 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 3,239 hectares (32.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Anka (3,257 ha, 1.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 35.5 °C, humidity dropped to 18 % and gusts hit 40 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 49, class Very high.
Where does this data come from?
From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Nigeria (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.

Emergency number: 112

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
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We will only use your email to reply about this report. Privacy. This is not an emergency service: if there is a fire now, call 112.

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 ADM2 (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.