How long did the Demsa fire last?

According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 27 January 2020 to 15 February 2020 (20 days). The perimeter dates it from 2 February 2020 to 8 February 2020.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 2,465 hectares (24.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 2 municipalities: Demsa (1,331 ha, 0.8 %); Numan (1,149 ha, 1.4 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 35.7 °C, humidity dropped to 11 % and gusts hit 34 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.

NG · Nigeria · 2020-01-27 → 2020-02-15

Demsa fire, January 2020 Demsa, Numan

Out · last detection 15 Feb 2020, 12:53 UTC

The fire started on 27 January 2020 in Demsa, Nigeria, and satellites saw it burning for 20 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,465 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 20th largest in Adamawa since 2016 (of 37 with a page). Number 101 in Nigeria in 2020, of 160.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Numan · 2019 Numan · 2017 Demsa · 2021 Demsa · 2022

Burnt area: 2,465ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 20days; 27 Jan 2020 – 15 Feb 2020
Municipalities hit: 2; local government areas
Started on: 27 Jan; 2020
Heat detections: 75; in a single hotspot: 120 MW
Danger at start: 48; Very high · FWI index
Average daily power: 77MW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 27 Jan15 Feb

Play back 15 Feb 2020

How it evolved, day by day

27 Jan 3 Feb 5 Feb 7 Feb 11 Feb 14 Feb

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

34km/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

37% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 21 ha in 2017, 923 ha in 2019.

How big is it?

It burned the equivalent of 1.6% of the area of London (25 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

Demsa where it started

1,331 ha reached on 27 Jan

0.8 %
Numan

1,149 ha reached on 3 Feb

1.4 %

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.

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	Danger (FWI)
2 Feb	33.0 °C	13 %	29 km/h	Very high 48
3 Feb	33.6 °C	11 %	27 km/h	Very high 48
4 Feb	33.9 °C	12 %	26 km/h	Very high 49
5 Feb	33.9 °C	11 %	27 km/h	Very high 49
6 Feb	33.9 °C	14 %	31 km/h	Extreme 50
7 Feb	35.6 °C	13 %	29 km/h	Very high 50
8 Feb	35.7 °C	12 %	34 km/h	Extreme 54
9 Feb	34.3 °C	16 %	31 km/h	Very high 50
10 Feb	34.1 °C	14 %	34 km/h	Extreme 53
11 Feb	33.5 °C	12 %	38 km/h	Extreme 57
12 Feb	31.9 °C	13 %	30 km/h	Very high 50
13 Feb	33.0 °C	13 %	31 km/h	Extreme 51
14 Feb	35.1 °C	13 %	29 km/h	Extreme 50
15 Feb	36.0 °C	13 %	28 km/h	Very high 49
16 Feb after	36.6 °C	10 %	25 km/h	Extreme 51
17 Feb after	36.1 °C	13 %	24 km/h	Extreme 51
18 Feb after	35.6 °C	14 %	24 km/h	Extreme 51

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 20 Jan 2020

After · 22 Feb 2020

Before After

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 time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Nigeria ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Demsa fire last?: According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 27 January 2020 to 15 February 2020 (20 days). The perimeter dates it from 2 February 2020 to 8 February 2020.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 2,465 hectares (24.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 2 municipalities: Demsa (1,331 ha, 0.8 %); Numan (1,149 ha, 1.4 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 35.7 °C, humidity dropped to 11 % and gusts hit 34 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 · Emergency number and official warnings ›

Satellite cross-check

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

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.

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What do you think is wrong?

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What really happened?

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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.
Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 2 February 2020 to 8 February 2020. 75 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.

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.

Where it burned