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Donga fire, January 2024 Donga

Out · last detection 29 Jan 2024, 13:19 UTC

The fire started on 21 January 2024 in Donga, Nigeria, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,484 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 26th largest in Taraba since 2016 (of 160 with a page). Number 22 in Nigeria in 2024, of 118.

Burnt area
4,484ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
8days
21 Jan 2024 – 28 Jan 2024
Municipalities hit
1
local government areas
Started on
21 Jan
2024
Heat detections
180
in a single hotspot: 71 MW
Danger at start
42
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
1.6GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

29 Jan 2024
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 21 Jan28 Jan

How it evolved, day by day

212223242526272829

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

The weather it burned in

37°high
33km/h · peak gust
15%lowest humidity

It had gone 55 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

64% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 17 ha in 2017, 339 ha in 2019, 895 ha in 2020, 602 ha in 2021, 1,508 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,889 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Donga where it started
    4,512 ha reached on 15 Jan
    1.4 %

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)
21 Jan 37.0 °C 16 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
22 Jan 36.2 °C 18 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
23 Jan 35.5 °C 15 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
24 Jan 35.5 °C 18 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
25 Jan 34.1 °C 20 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
26 Jan 34.7 °C 21 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
27 Jan 34.7 °C 20 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
28 Jan 34.8 °C 21 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
29 Jan after 35.4 °C 19 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
30 Jan after 37.0 °C 19 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
31 Jan after 36.7 °C 20 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
1 Feb after 36.0 °C 18 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
2 Feb after 34.7 °C 18 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
3 Feb after 35.3 °C 17 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
4 Feb after 35.0 °C 15 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
5 Feb after 34.9 °C 16 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
6 Feb after 35.1 °C 16 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
7 Feb after 36.5 °C 16 % 31 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 · 14 Jan 2024
After · 4 Feb 2024

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 · 180Every 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 Donga fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 21 January 2024 and 28 January 2024: 8 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 4,484 hectares (44.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Donga (4,512 ha, 1.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.0 °C, humidity dropped to 15 % and gusts hit 33 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 45, 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
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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.

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.