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Bakura fire, December 2025 Tureta, Bakura

Out · last detection 9 Dec 2025, 12:35 UTC

The fire started on 7 December 2025 in Bakura, Nigeria, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,464 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 43th largest in Zamfara since 2016 (of 208 with a page). Number 82 in Nigeria in 2025, of 294.

Burnt area
4,464ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
3days
7 Dec 2025 – 9 Dec 2025
Municipalities hit
2
local government areas
Started on
7 Dec
2025
Heat detections
100
in a single hotspot: 95 MW
Danger at start
47
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
1.2GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

9 Dec 2025
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 7 Dec9 Dec

How it evolved, day by day

789

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

The weather it burned in

32°high
36km/h · peak gust
20%lowest humidity

It had gone 57 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

58% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 607 ha in 2018, 9 ha in 2019, 13 ha in 2020, 1,019 ha in 2021, 1,516 ha in 2023, 380 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,586 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Tureta
    2,397 ha reached on 7 Dec
    1.3 %
  2. Bakura where it started
    2,094 ha reached on 6 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)
7 Dec 32.2 °C 20 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
8 Dec 31.0 °C 22 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
9 Dec 31.9 °C 24 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
10 Dec after 31.7 °C 21 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
11 Dec after 32.6 °C 23 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
12 Dec after 34.1 °C 24 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
13 Dec after 35.4 °C 24 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
14 Dec after 34.7 °C 22 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
15 Dec after 32.6 °C 21 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
16 Dec after 32.7 °C 21 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
17 Dec after 31.6 °C 22 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
18 Dec after 34.2 °C 24 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
19 Dec after 33.6 °C 24 % 26 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 · 30 Nov 2025
After · 16 Dec 2025

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 9 December 2025 the air beside the fire reached 247 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 192: 13 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak247 µg/m³
Days over the guideline8 days
PM102,071 µg/m³
Optical depth1.12
56789101112
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 · 100Every 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 Bakura fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 7 December 2025 and 9 December 2025: 3 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 4,464 hectares (44.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Tureta (2,397 ha, 1.3 %); Bakura (2,094 ha, 1.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 32.2 °C, humidity dropped to 20 % and gusts hit 36 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 47, 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.