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Damboa fire, 20 October 2017 Damboa

Out · last detection 22 Oct 2017, 12:17 UTC

The fire started on 20 October 2017 in Damboa, Nigeria, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,196 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 169th largest in Borno since 2016 (of 461 with a page). Number 53 in Nigeria in 2017, of 143.

Burnt area
3,196ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
3days
20 Oct 2017 – 22 Oct 2017
Municipalities hit
1
local government areas
Started on
20 Oct
2017
Heat detections
75
in a single hotspot: 47 MW
Danger at start
23
High · FWI index
Energy released
1.1GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

22 Oct 2017
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 20 Oct22 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

202122

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
27km/h · peak gust
24%lowest humidity

It had gone 11 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

5% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 165 ha in 2016.

What happened to each town

  1. Damboa where it started
    3,215 ha reached on 20 Oct
    0.7 %

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)
20 Oct 34.6 °C 29 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
21 Oct 35.6 °C 25 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
22 Oct 35.4 °C 24 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
23 Oct after 35.7 °C 28 % 17 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
24 Oct after 35.2 °C 25 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
25 Oct after 34.8 °C 24 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
26 Oct after 34.7 °C 24 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
27 Oct after 32.7 °C 26 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
28 Oct after 33.4 °C 28 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
29 Oct after 33.2 °C 27 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
30 Oct after 33.7 °C 25 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
31 Oct after 34.5 °C 21 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
1 Nov after 34.6 °C 22 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 34

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 13 Oct 2017
After · 29 Oct 2017

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 · 75Every 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 Damboa fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 20 October 2017 and 22 October 2017: 3 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 3,196 hectares (32.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Damboa (3,215 ha, 0.7 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 35.6 °C, humidity dropped to 24 % and gusts hit 27 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 27, 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
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.

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.