Skip to content
worldfires
NG · Nigeria · →

Donga fire, 1 January 2026 Donga, Bali, Kurmi

Out · last detection 1 Feb 2026, 12:22 UTC

The fire started on 1 January 2026 in Donga, Nigeria, and satellites saw it burning for 31 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 57,756 hectares from heat detections, spread across 3 municipalities.

It is the largest fire in Taraba since 2016 (of 160 with a page). Number 2 in Nigeria in 2026, of 258.

Burnt area
57,756ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
31days
1 Jan 2026 – 31 Jan 2026
Municipalities hit
3
local government areas
Started on
1 Jan
2026
Heat detections
2,309
in a single hotspot: 0 MW
Danger at start
33
High · FWI index
Energy released
14.5GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

1 Feb 2026
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 1 Jan31 Jan

How it evolved, day by day

1234567891011121314151617182021222324252627282930311

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

The weather it burned in

39°high
32km/h · peak gust
12%lowest humidity

It had gone 50 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

43% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,996 ha in 2016, 1,744 ha in 2017, 5,597 ha in 2018, 3,577 ha in 2019, 1,493 ha in 2020, 5,679 ha in 2021, 5,185 ha in 2022, 4,209 ha in 2023, 5,574 ha in 2024, 10,207 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 24,652 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Donga where it started
    28,530 ha
    9.2 %
  2. Bali
    22,845 ha
    2.3 %
  3. Kurmi
    6,717 ha
    1.5 %

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)
1 Jan 38.9 °C 28 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
2 Jan 37.0 °C 31 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
3 Jan 36.6 °C 28 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
4 Jan 38.3 °C 15 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
5 Jan 37.1 °C 17 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
6 Jan 37.9 °C 17 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
7 Jan 35.6 °C 28 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
8 Jan 34.2 °C 38 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
9 Jan 37.8 °C 12 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
10 Jan 36.5 °C 14 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
11 Jan 36.1 °C 20 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
12 Jan 36.7 °C 21 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
13 Jan 37.0 °C 18 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
14 Jan 35.1 °C 21 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
15 Jan 36.2 °C 23 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
16 Jan 37.3 °C 21 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
17 Jan 37.4 °C 19 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
18 Jan 36.3 °C 36 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
19 Jan 36.5 °C 39 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
20 Jan 35.3 °C 44 % 26 km/h 1.6 mm Moderate 16
21 Jan 35.4 °C 41 % 22 km/h 0.2 mm High 23
22 Jan 34.6 °C 44 % 26 km/h 1.0 mm Moderate 19
23 Jan 37.3 °C 22 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
24 Jan 36.1 °C 23 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
25 Jan 36.9 °C 21 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
26 Jan 36.6 °C 19 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
27 Jan 36.4 °C 18 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
28 Jan 36.0 °C 18 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
29 Jan 37.0 °C 18 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
30 Jan 35.2 °C 18 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
31 Jan 36.7 °C 28 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
1 Feb after 37.2 °C 35 % 25 km/h 0.1 mm High 35
2 Feb after 39.4 °C 19 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
3 Feb after 38.9 °C 27 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
4 Feb after 36.6 °C 28 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
5 Feb after 38.8 °C 26 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
6 Feb after 37.6 °C 31 % 29 km/h 0.1 mm High 38
7 Feb after 36.9 °C 33 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
8 Feb after 38.5 °C 26 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
9 Feb after 38.4 °C 27 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
10 Feb after 38.4 °C 26 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 37

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 25 Dec 2025
After · 7 Feb 2026

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 30 January 2026 the air beside the fire reached 108 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 95: 6.3 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak108 µg/m³
Days over the guideline36 days
PM10327 µg/m³
Optical depth1.04
303112345678910111213141516171819202122232425262728293031123
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 · 0Every 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 1 January 2026 and 31 January 2026: 31 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 57,756 hectares (577.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 3 municipalities: Donga (28,530 ha, 9.2 %); Bali (22,845 ha, 2.3 %); Kurmi (6,717 ha, 1.5 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 38.9 °C, humidity dropped to 12 % and gusts hit 32 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
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.