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Donga fire, 21 January 2025 Donga, Kurmi

Out · last detection 28 Jan 2025, 12:35 UTC

The fire started on 21 January 2025 in Donga, Nigeria, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,191 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 49th largest in Taraba since 2016 (of 160 with a page). Number 128 in Nigeria in 2025, of 294.

Burnt area
3,191ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
7days
21 Jan 2025 – 27 Jan 2025
Municipalities hit
2
local government areas
Started on
21 Jan
2025
Heat detections
116
in a single hotspot: 95 MW
Danger at start
27
High · FWI index
Energy released
691MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

28 Jan 2025
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 21 Jan27 Jan

How it evolved, day by day

2122232425262728

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

The weather it burned in

38°high
31km/h · peak gust
17%lowest humidity

It had gone 0 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

82% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 660 ha in 2016, 37 ha in 2018, 1,420 ha in 2019, 2,181 ha in 2021, 977 ha in 2022, 691 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,630 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Donga where it started
    1,690 ha reached on 21 Jan
    0.5 %
  2. Kurmi
    1,521 ha reached on 22 Jan
    0.3 %

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 35.4 °C 37 % 30 km/h 0.3 mm High 27
22 Jan 37.1 °C 20 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
23 Jan 37.4 °C 17 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
24 Jan 37.3 °C 18 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
25 Jan 36.6 °C 19 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
26 Jan 37.8 °C 17 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
27 Jan 37.1 °C 17 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
28 Jan after 37.2 °C 19 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
29 Jan after 37.0 °C 18 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
30 Jan after 37.2 °C 17 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
31 Jan after 36.9 °C 18 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
1 Feb after 37.4 °C 18 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
2 Feb after 37.8 °C 18 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
3 Feb after 38.9 °C 19 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
4 Feb after 38.4 °C 17 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
5 Feb after 37.7 °C 13 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
6 Feb after 39.1 °C 13 % 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 · 14 Jan 2025
After · 3 Feb 2025

If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.

The smoke

CAMS · Copernicus

On 24 January 2025 the air beside the fire reached 75 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 58: 3.9 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak75 µg/m³
Days over the guideline12 days
PM10282 µg/m³
Optical depth0.75
192021222324252627282930
Good Fair Moderate Poor Very poor Extremely poor

Particles from the Copernicus CAMS model at the centre of the perimeter; these are not measurements in each town. The pale bar is the worst hour, the solid one the daily average.

Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS)

Detections table · 116Every 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 2025 and 27 January 2025: 7 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 3,191 hectares (31.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Donga (1,690 ha, 0.5 %); Kurmi (1,521 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.8 °C, humidity dropped to 17 % and gusts hit 31 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 44, 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.