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Borgu fire, 2 December 2020 Borgu

Out · last detection 6 Dec 2020, 12:22 UTC

The fire started on 2 December 2020 in Borgu, Nigeria, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,662 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 112th largest in Niger since 2016 (of 271 with a page). Number 28 in Nigeria in 2020, of 150.

Burnt area
3,662ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
4days
2 Dec 2020 – 5 Dec 2020
Municipalities hit
1
local government areas
Started on
2 Dec
2020
Heat detections
101
in a single hotspot: 56 MW
Danger at start
37
High · FWI index
Energy released
1.7GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

6 Dec 2020
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 2 Dec5 Dec

How it evolved, day by day

23456

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
28km/h · peak gust
19%lowest humidity

It had gone 52 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

50% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 967 ha in 2016, 799 ha in 2017, 861 ha in 2019. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,826 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Borgu where it started
    3,682 ha reached on 2 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)
2 Dec 35.5 °C 19 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
3 Dec 34.9 °C 19 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
4 Dec 35.5 °C 20 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
5 Dec 35.9 °C 27 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
6 Dec after 36.2 °C 24 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
7 Dec after 36.7 °C 22 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
8 Dec after 35.8 °C 24 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
9 Dec after 35.4 °C 29 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
10 Dec after 36.3 °C 21 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
11 Dec after 35.9 °C 23 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
12 Dec after 36.7 °C 20 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
13 Dec after 36.2 °C 24 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
14 Dec after 36.1 °C 23 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
15 Dec after 36.4 °C 24 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 25 Nov 2020
After · 12 Dec 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 · 101Every 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 2 December 2020 and 5 December 2020: 4 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 3,662 hectares (36.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Borgu (3,682 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 35.9 °C, humidity dropped to 19 % and gusts hit 28 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 37, class 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.