How long did the Apa fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 2 January 2026 and 12 January 2026: 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 8,255 hectares (82.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 2 municipalities: Apa (6,500 ha, 6.0 %); Oturkpo (1,809 ha, 1.3 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 38.8 °C, humidity dropped to 15 % and gusts hit 35 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 43, 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.

NG · Nigeria · 2026-01-02 → 2026-01-12

Apa fire, January 2026 Apa, Oturkpo

Out · last detection 13 Jan 2026, 13:18 UTC

The fire started on 2 January 2026 in Apa, Nigeria, and satellites saw it burning for 11 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 8,255 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 9th largest in Benue since 2016 (of 83 with a page). Number 24 in Nigeria in 2026, of 262.

Burnt area: 8,255ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 11days; 2 Jan 2026 – 12 Jan 2026
Municipalities hit: 2; local government areas
Started on: 2 Jan; 2026
Heat detections: 206; in a single hotspot: 112 MW
Danger at start: 38; High · FWI index
Energy released: 2.1GW; sum of detected power

Play back 13 Jan 2026

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 2 Jan12 Jan

How it evolved, day by day

2345678910111213

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

The weather it burned in

39°high

35km/h · peak gust

15%lowest humidity

It had gone 56 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

27% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 896 ha in 2019, 366 ha in 2023, 934 ha in 2024, 144 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,192 ha that had burned before.

144 ha Oturkpo fire, December 2025 5,771 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire

What happened to each town

Apa where it started

6,500 ha reached on 29 Dec

6.0 %
Oturkpo

1,809 ha reached on 30 Dec

1.3 %

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)
2 Jan	37.1 °C	31 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	High 38
3 Jan	36.8 °C	32 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
4 Jan	38.4 °C	23 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	High 37
5 Jan	37.3 °C	20 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
6 Jan	37.7 °C	19 %	25 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 38
7 Jan	36.3 °C	31 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
8 Jan	36.1 °C	34 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
9 Jan	38.8 °C	18 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 43
10 Jan	37.2 °C	15 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
11 Jan	35.7 °C	20 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 43
12 Jan	35.3 °C	21 %	25 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
13 Jan after	36.7 °C	17 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
14 Jan after	35.5 °C	19 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
15 Jan after	35.7 °C	24 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
16 Jan after	36.8 °C	25 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
17 Jan after	37.2 °C	25 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
18 Jan after	37.6 °C	27 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44
19 Jan after	37.9 °C	39 %	30 km/h	0.1 mm	High 37
20 Jan after	38.4 °C	30 %	32 km/h	0.4 mm	Very high 40
21 Jan after	38.0 °C	21 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
22 Jan after	36.8 °C	30 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 26 Dec 2025

After · 19 Jan 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 15 January 2026 the air beside the fire reached 151 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 108: 7.2 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak151 µg/m³

Days over the guideline16 days

PM10277 µg/m³

Optical depth0.88

WHO 15

31123456789101112131415

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 · 206Every 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 Nigeria ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Apa fire last?: GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 2 January 2026 and 12 January 2026: 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 8,255 hectares (82.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 2 municipalities: Apa (6,500 ha, 6.0 %); Oturkpo (1,809 ha, 1.3 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 38.8 °C, humidity dropped to 15 % and gusts hit 35 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 43, 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

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

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

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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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.

Where it burned