Skip to content
worldfires
NG · Nigeria · →

Damboa fire, January 2021 Kaga, Damboa

Out · last detection 3 Feb 2021, 12:16 UTC

The fire started on 30 January 2021 in Damboa, Nigeria, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,779 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 117th largest in Borno since 2016 (of 461 with a page). Number 57 in Nigeria in 2021, of 184.

Burnt area
3,779ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
5days
30 Jan 2021 – 3 Feb 2021
Municipalities hit
2
local government areas
Started on
30 Jan
2021
Heat detections
90
in a single hotspot: 45 MW
Danger at start
49
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
554MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

3 Feb 2021
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 30 Jan3 Feb

How it evolved, day by day

3031123

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
38km/h · peak gust
12%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

67% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 38 ha in 2017, 2,569 ha in 2019.

What happened to each town

  1. Kaga
    1,979 ha reached on 31 Jan
    0.5 %
  2. Damboa where it started
    1,822 ha reached on 30 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)
30 Jan 30.9 °C 17 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
31 Jan 32.6 °C 15 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
1 Feb 33.3 °C 15 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
2 Feb 33.6 °C 13 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
3 Feb 32.5 °C 12 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
4 Feb after 31.6 °C 13 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
5 Feb after 30.4 °C 16 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
6 Feb after 31.8 °C 17 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
7 Feb after 33.9 °C 13 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
8 Feb after 35.2 °C 11 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
9 Feb after 35.0 °C 11 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
10 Feb after 34.3 °C 11 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
11 Feb after 33.8 °C 12 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
12 Feb after 33.9 °C 13 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
13 Feb after 35.7 °C 14 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 23 Jan 2021
After · 10 Feb 2021

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 · 90Every 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 30 January 2021 and 3 February 2021: 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 3,779 hectares (37.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Kaga (1,979 ha, 0.5 %); Damboa (1,822 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 33.6 °C, humidity dropped to 12 % and gusts hit 38 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

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.