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Bama fire, 28 October 2025 Bama

Out · last detection 2 Nov 2025, 12:27 UTC

The fire started on 28 October 2025 in Bama, Nigeria, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,028 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 189th largest in Borno since 2016 (of 457 with a page). Number 145 in Nigeria in 2025, of 294.

The power measured by the satellite is low (21.8 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
3,028ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
6days
28 Oct 2025 – 2 Nov 2025
Municipalities hit
1
local government areas
Started on
28 Oct
2025
Heat detections
68
in a single hotspot: 22 MW
Danger at start
39
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
414MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

2 Nov 2025
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 28 Oct2 Nov

How it evolved, day by day

2829303112

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

The weather it burned in

38°high
33km/h · peak gust
16%lowest humidity

It had gone 22 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

42% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 622 ha in 2017, 644 ha in 2023.

What happened to each town

  1. Bama where it started
    3,048 ha reached on 28 Oct
    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)
28 Oct 37.8 °C 17 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
29 Oct 37.0 °C 17 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
30 Oct 37.3 °C 19 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
31 Oct 37.2 °C 19 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
1 Nov 37.1 °C 16 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
2 Nov 37.2 °C 20 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
3 Nov after 37.2 °C 19 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
4 Nov after 38.1 °C 18 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
5 Nov after 38.3 °C 16 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
6 Nov after 37.4 °C 18 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
7 Nov after 37.1 °C 18 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
8 Nov after 37.5 °C 18 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
9 Nov after 37.6 °C 19 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
10 Nov after 37.6 °C 19 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
11 Nov after 36.6 °C 14 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
12 Nov after 36.9 °C 16 % 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 · 21 Oct 2025
After · 9 Nov 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 2 November 2025 the air beside the fire reached 91 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 52: 3.5 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak91 µg/m³
Days over the guideline11 days
PM10117 µg/m³
Optical depth0.51
26272829303112345
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 · 68Every 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 Bama fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 28 October 2025 and 2 November 2025: 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 3,028 hectares (30.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Bama (3,048 ha, 0.8 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.8 °C, humidity dropped to 16 % and gusts hit 33 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 39, 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.