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Borgu fire, 25 December 2019 Borgu, Baruten

Out · last detection 6 Jan 2020, 00:58 UTC

The fire started on 25 December 2019 in Borgu, Nigeria, and satellites saw it burning for 13 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,884 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 47th largest in Niger since 2016 (of 271 with a page). Number 7 in Nigeria in 2019, of 106.

Burnt area
6,884ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
13days
25 Dec 2019 – 6 Jan 2020
Municipalities hit
2
local government areas
Started on
25 Dec
2019
Heat detections
308
in a single hotspot: 95 MW
Danger at start
37
High · FWI index
Energy released
1.8GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

6 Jan 2020
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 25 Dec6 Jan

How it evolved, day by day

2526272830123456

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

The weather it burned in

33°high
37km/h · peak gust
18%lowest humidity

It had gone 55 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

29% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 983 ha in 2016, 1,498 ha in 2017. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,997 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Borgu where it started
    6,789 ha reached on 19 Dec
    0.6 %
  2. Baruten
    137 ha reached on 19 Dec
    0.0 %

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)
25 Dec 33.0 °C 20 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
26 Dec 32.9 °C 20 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
27 Dec 31.7 °C 22 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
28 Dec 32.4 °C 23 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
29 Dec 31.9 °C 18 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
30 Dec 31.2 °C 18 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
31 Dec 30.5 °C 19 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
1 Jan 29.8 °C 19 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
2 Jan 26.0 °C 24 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
3 Jan 25.5 °C 24 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
4 Jan 26.4 °C 24 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
5 Jan 29.2 °C 25 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
6 Jan 30.7 °C 28 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
7 Jan after 31.8 °C 29 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
8 Jan after 33.2 °C 28 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
9 Jan after 33.1 °C 23 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
10 Jan after 34.1 °C 27 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
11 Jan after 34.1 °C 36 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
12 Jan after 35.5 °C 32 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
13 Jan after 35.0 °C 24 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
14 Jan after 33.1 °C 15 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
15 Jan after 33.1 °C 18 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
16 Jan after 32.3 °C 21 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 18 Dec 2019
After · 13 Jan 2020

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 · 308Every 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 25 December 2019 and 6 January 2020: 13 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 6,884 hectares (68.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Borgu (6,789 ha, 0.6 %); Baruten (137 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 33.0 °C, humidity dropped to 18 % and gusts hit 37 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 42, 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.