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Borgu fire, 6 January 2026 Borgu

Out · last detection 28 Jan 2026, 13:38 UTC

The fire started on 6 January 2026 in Borgu, Nigeria, and satellites saw it burning for 22 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 8,007 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 37th largest in Niger since 2016 (of 271 with a page). Number 27 in Nigeria in 2026, of 262.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Borgu · 2025Borgu · 2024Borgu · 2024Borgu · 2016

Burnt area
8,007ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
22days
6 Jan 2026 – 27 Jan 2026
Municipalities hit
1
local government areas
Started on
6 Jan
2026
Heat detections
203
in a single hotspot: 123 MW
Danger at start
41
Very high · FWI index
Average daily power
78MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 6 Jan27 Jan
28 Jan 2026

How it evolved, day by day

6 Jan 2026 · 16 MW · 3 7 Jan 2026 · 44 MW · 11 8 Jan 2026 · 14 MW · 5 9 Jan 2026 · 777 MW · 18 10 Jan 2026 · 20 MW · 7 11 Jan 2026 · 1 MW · 1 12 Jan 2026 · 28 MW · 6 13 Jan 2026 · 24 MW · 4 14 Jan 2026 · 71 MW · 10 15 Jan 2026 · 1 MW · 2 17 Jan 2026 · 20 MW · 11 18 Jan 2026 · 206 MW · 27 19 Jan 2026 · 113 MW · 17 20 Jan 2026 · 131 MW · 18 21 Jan 2026 · 45 MW · 8 22 Jan 2026 · 12 MW · 3 23 Jan 2026 · 32 MW · 5 24 Jan 2026 · 41 MW · 12 25 Jan 2026 · 53 MW · 13 26 Jan 2026 · 57 MW · 10 27 Jan 2026 · 13 MW · 3 28 Jan 2026 · 9 MW · 1
6 Jan 9 Jan 10 Jan 14 Jan 19 Jan 23 Jan 27 Jan

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

The weather it burned in

37°high
33km/h · peak gust
11%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

85% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 245 ha in 2022, 839 ha in 2023, 3,705 ha in 2024, 6,045 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 6,807 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 5.1% of the area of London (80 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each town

  1. Borgu where it started
    8,052 ha reached on 31 Dec
    0.7 %

Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance runs from the point marking the centre of each area to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.

People and buildings inside the perimeter

GHSL 2025
Built-up area0.79 ha
Residents≈ 90

Inside the perimeter there were about 0.79 hectares of built-up land and about 90 residents (GHSL 2025, satellite-based estimate).

This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned. The GHSL 2025 epoch is a projection made from 2020 and earlier data.

Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu

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)
6 Jan 36.9 °C 20 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
7 Jan 36.1 °C 25 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
8 Jan 36.5 °C 26 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
9 Jan 35.2 °C 19 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
10 Jan 34.0 °C 15 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
11 Jan 33.2 °C 18 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
12 Jan 34.9 °C 20 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
13 Jan 35.2 °C 17 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
14 Jan 34.4 °C 17 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
15 Jan 34.2 °C 18 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
16 Jan 35.2 °C 19 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
17 Jan 35.8 °C 20 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
18 Jan 35.5 °C 25 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
19 Jan 36.8 °C 17 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
20 Jan 35.8 °C 12 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
21 Jan 33.4 °C 15 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
22 Jan 31.8 °C 14 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
23 Jan 33.7 °C 11 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
24 Jan 35.8 °C 13 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
25 Jan 35.7 °C 12 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
26 Jan 35.0 °C 12 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
27 Jan 34.2 °C 18 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
28 Jan after 35.7 °C 19 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
29 Jan after 35.8 °C 13 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
30 Jan after 36.2 °C 10 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
31 Jan after 38.1 °C 20 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
1 Feb after 38.0 °C 20 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
2 Feb after 39.2 °C 9 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
3 Feb after 38.2 °C 15 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
4 Feb after 38.3 °C 17 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
5 Feb after 39.2 °C 15 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
6 Feb after 38.9 °C 22 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 30 Dec 2025
After · 3 Feb 2026

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 11 January 2026 the air beside the fire reached 158 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 133: 8.8 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak158 µg/m³
Days over the guideline27 days
PM10620 µg/m³
Optical depth1.24
456789101112131415161718192021222324252627282930
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 · 203Every 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 6 January 2026 and 27 January 2026: 22 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 8,007 hectares (80.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Borgu (8,052 ha, 0.7 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.9 °C, humidity dropped to 11 % and gusts hit 33 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 53, class Extreme.
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 · Emergency number and official warnings ›

Satellite cross-check

History of this page Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.

No changes since 24 October 2026.

RSS Changes to this page

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
What do you think is wrong?

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.

How we know this
  • Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery; 3 polygons grouped in this page.
  • Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 203 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
  • We have not matched this page with any official record.
  • Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
  • Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2025, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.

How we build fire pages: methodology ›

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.