Skip to content
worldfires
NG · Nigeria · →

Damboa fire, January 2020 Damboa, Askira Uba

Out · last detection 2 Feb 2020, 11:57 UTC

The fire started on 29 January 2020 in Damboa, Nigeria, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,085 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 53th largest in Borno since 2016 (of 457 with a page). Number 13 in Nigeria in 2020, of 150.

Burnt area
6,085ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
5days
29 Jan 2020 – 2 Feb 2020
Municipalities hit
2
local government areas
Started on
29 Jan
2020
Heat detections
130
in a single hotspot: 75 MW
Danger at start
49
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
983MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

2 Feb 2020
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 29 Jan2 Feb

How it evolved, day by day

29303112

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

The weather it burned in

32°high
38km/h · peak gust
9%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: 1,027 ha in 2016, 3,078 ha in 2017. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 3,288 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Damboa where it started
    5,112 ha reached on 29 Jan
    1.1 %
  2. Askira Uba
    1,009 ha reached on 31 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)
29 Jan 32.4 °C 9 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
30 Jan 31.9 °C 10 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
31 Jan 31.6 °C 12 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
1 Feb 30.5 °C 12 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
2 Feb 31.4 °C 12 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
3 Feb after 31.4 °C 11 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
4 Feb after 31.4 °C 10 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
5 Feb after 30.9 °C 11 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
6 Feb after 31.6 °C 13 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
7 Feb after 33.1 °C 12 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
8 Feb after 32.1 °C 15 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
9 Feb after 31.3 °C 15 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
10 Feb after 31.6 °C 12 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
11 Feb after 29.7 °C 10 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
12 Feb after 29.8 °C 11 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 22 Jan 2020
After · 9 Feb 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 · 130Every 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 29 January 2020 and 2 February 2020: 5 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 6,085 hectares (60.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Damboa (5,112 ha, 1.1 %); Askira Uba (1,009 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 32.4 °C, humidity dropped to 9 % and gusts hit 38 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 54, 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

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.