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Borgu fire, January 2020 Borgu

Out · last detection 16 Jan 2020, 12:16 UTC

The fire started on 8 January 2020 in Borgu, Nigeria, and satellites saw it burning for 9 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,621 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 67th largest in Niger since 2016 (of 271 with a page). Number 18 in Nigeria in 2020, of 150.

The power measured by the satellite is low (20.9 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
4,621ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
9days
8 Jan 2020 – 16 Jan 2020
Municipalities hit
1
local government areas
Started on
8 Jan
2020
Heat detections
183
in a single hotspot: 21 MW
Danger at start
39
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
575MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

16 Jan 2020
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 8 Jan16 Jan

How it evolved, day by day

8910111213141516

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

The weather it burned in

36°high
35km/h · peak gust
13%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

54% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,598 ha in 2016, 662 ha in 2017, 1,639 ha in 2018. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,515 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Borgu where it started
    4,649 ha reached on 5 Jan
    0.4 %

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)
8 Jan 33.0 °C 24 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
9 Jan 33.1 °C 20 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
10 Jan 33.7 °C 24 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
11 Jan 34.3 °C 32 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
12 Jan 35.7 °C 24 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
13 Jan 35.2 °C 20 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
14 Jan 33.4 °C 13 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
15 Jan 33.3 °C 17 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
16 Jan 32.5 °C 18 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
17 Jan after 32.2 °C 19 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
18 Jan after 31.9 °C 20 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
19 Jan after 30.1 °C 22 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
20 Jan after 31.4 °C 24 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
21 Jan after 33.8 °C 23 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
22 Jan after 33.5 °C 20 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
23 Jan after 32.7 °C 17 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
24 Jan after 32.7 °C 13 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
25 Jan after 32.5 °C 12 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
26 Jan after 31.8 °C 15 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 1 Jan 2020
After · 23 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 · 183Every 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 8 January 2020 and 16 January 2020: 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 4,621 hectares (46.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Borgu (4,649 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 35.7 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 35 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.