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Borgu fire, 15 December 2016 Borgu

Out · last detection 24 Dec 2016, 00:33 UTC

The fire started on 15 December 2016 in Borgu, Nigeria, and satellites saw it burning for 9 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,364 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 128th largest in Niger since 2016 (of 271 with a page). Number 61 in Nigeria in 2016, of 198.

Burnt area
3,364ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
9days
15 Dec 2016 – 23 Dec 2016
Municipalities hit
1
local government areas
Started on
15 Dec
2016
Heat detections
74
in a single hotspot: 69 MW
Danger at start
43
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
899MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

24 Dec 2016
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 15 Dec23 Dec

How it evolved, day by day

1516182021222324

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
33km/h · peak gust
12%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

What happened to each town

  1. Borgu where it started
    3,385 ha reached on 15 Dec
    0.3 %

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)
15 Dec 34.5 °C 23 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
16 Dec 34.8 °C 25 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
17 Dec 35.1 °C 21 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
18 Dec 34.2 °C 21 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
19 Dec 34.4 °C 21 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
20 Dec 35.4 °C 16 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
21 Dec 35.1 °C 14 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
22 Dec 34.8 °C 17 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
23 Dec 34.6 °C 12 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
24 Dec after 33.2 °C 12 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
25 Dec after 32.3 °C 13 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
26 Dec after 29.0 °C 16 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
27 Dec after 29.3 °C 17 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
28 Dec after 29.9 °C 18 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
29 Dec after 30.8 °C 17 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
30 Dec after 31.1 °C 19 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
31 Dec after 31.3 °C 18 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
1 Jan after 30.5 °C 19 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
2 Jan after 31.2 °C 20 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 8 Dec 2016
After · 30 Dec 2016

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 · 74Every 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 Borgu fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 15 December 2016 and 23 December 2016: 9 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 3,364 hectares (33.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Borgu (3,385 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 35.4 °C, humidity dropped to 12 % and gusts hit 33 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 48, 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.