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Apa fire, January 2022 Agatu, Omala, Apa

Out · last detection 31 Jan 2022, 12:28 UTC

The fire started on 20 January 2022 in Apa, Nigeria, and satellites saw it burning for 11 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 12,124 hectares from heat detections, spread across 3 municipalities.

It is the 4th largest in Benue since 2016 (of 83 with a page). Number 4 in Nigeria in 2022, of 125.

Burnt area
12,124ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
11days
20 Jan 2022 – 30 Jan 2022
Municipalities hit
3
local government areas
Started on
20 Jan
2022
Heat detections
482
in a single hotspot: 74 MW
Danger at start
42
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
3.6GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

31 Jan 2022
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 20 Jan30 Jan

How it evolved, day by day

202122232425262728293031

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

The weather it burned in

35°high
43km/h · peak gust
12%lowest humidity

It had gone 5 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

77% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 268 ha in 2017, 5,137 ha in 2018, 3,126 ha in 2019, 3,991 ha in 2020, 7,872 ha in 2021. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 9,342 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Agatu
    6,656 ha reached on 20 Jan
    6.2 %
  2. Omala
    4,631 ha reached on 19 Jan
    3.0 %
  3. Apa where it started
    915 ha reached on 18 Jan
    0.8 %

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)
20 Jan 33.4 °C 19 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
21 Jan 33.4 °C 17 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
22 Jan 34.6 °C 17 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
23 Jan 34.1 °C 18 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
24 Jan 34.8 °C 12 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
25 Jan 33.9 °C 16 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
26 Jan 33.8 °C 16 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
27 Jan 34.0 °C 16 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
28 Jan 33.7 °C 18 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
29 Jan 34.2 °C 17 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
30 Jan 34.0 °C 16 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
31 Jan after 34.2 °C 14 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
1 Feb after 33.7 °C 14 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
2 Feb after 34.6 °C 15 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
3 Feb after 34.4 °C 19 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
4 Feb after 34.5 °C 16 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
5 Feb after 34.0 °C 15 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
6 Feb after 34.9 °C 16 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
7 Feb after 35.3 °C 16 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
8 Feb after 36.2 °C 17 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
9 Feb after 37.2 °C 19 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 13 Jan 2022
After · 6 Feb 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 · 482Every 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 Apa fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 20 January 2022 and 30 January 2022: 11 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 12,124 hectares (121.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 3 municipalities: Agatu (6,656 ha, 6.2 %); Omala (4,631 ha, 3.0 %); Apa (915 ha, 0.8 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 34.8 °C, humidity dropped to 12 % and gusts hit 43 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 54, class Extreme.
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.

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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.