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Damboa fire, 28 October 2017 Damboa

Out · last detection 31 Oct 2017, 12:48 UTC

The fire started on 28 October 2017 in Damboa, Nigeria, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,956 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 202th largest in Borno since 2016 (of 461 with a page). Number 65 in Nigeria in 2017, of 143.

Burnt area
2,956ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
3days
28 Oct 2017 – 30 Oct 2017
Municipalities hit
1
local government areas
Started on
28 Oct
2017
Heat detections
66
in a single hotspot: 55 MW
Danger at start
33
High · FWI index
Energy released
920MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

31 Oct 2017
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 28 Oct30 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

293031

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

The weather it burned in

34°high
34km/h · peak gust
23%lowest humidity

It had gone 28 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

43% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,260 ha in 2016.

What happened to each town

  1. Damboa where it started
    2,976 ha reached on 29 Oct
    0.6 %

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)
28 Oct 34.1 °C 26 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
29 Oct 34.0 °C 25 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
30 Oct 34.3 °C 23 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
31 Oct after 35.1 °C 19 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
1 Nov after 35.1 °C 20 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
2 Nov after 35.0 °C 23 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
3 Nov after 34.5 °C 23 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
4 Nov after 34.6 °C 23 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
5 Nov after 33.9 °C 21 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
6 Nov after 33.5 °C 21 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
7 Nov after 33.6 °C 21 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
8 Nov after 34.5 °C 19 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
9 Nov after 34.0 °C 20 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 21 Oct 2017
After · 6 Nov 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 · 66Every 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 28 October 2017 and 30 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 2,956 hectares (29.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Damboa (2,976 ha, 0.6 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 34.3 °C, humidity dropped to 23 % and gusts hit 34 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 38, 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
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.