Esan West fire, 11 February 2023 Uhunmwonde, Owan West, Esan West
The fire started on 11 February 2023 in Esan West, Nigeria, and satellites saw it burning for 11 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,064 hectares from heat detections, spread across 3 municipalities.
It is the 37th largest in Edo since 2016 (of 78 with a page). Number 63 in Nigeria in 2023, of 161.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 3,064ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 11days
- 11 Feb 2023 – 21 Feb 2023
- Municipalities hit
- 3
- local government areas
- Started on
- 11 Feb
- 2023
- Heat detections
- 126
- in a single hotspot: 146 MW
- Danger at start
- 37
- High · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 139MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone 8 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.4 mm on 24 Feb.
This area had burned before
86% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,087 ha in 2016, 932 ha in 2020, 1,767 ha in 2021, 395 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,641 ha that had burned before.
How big is it?
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Paris boundary: geoBoundaries · Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière (IGN-F) (Etalab Open License 2.0).
Madrid boundary: geoBoundaries · Open Data ESRI, IGN Central Registry of Cartography Area (CC BY 4.0).
Berlin boundary: geoBoundaries · Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy (dl-de/by-2-0).
This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.
What happened to each town
-
1,771 ha reached on 15 Feb0.8 %
-
707 ha reached on 13 Feb1.0 %
-
Esan West where it started607 ha reached on 11 Feb1.2 %
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.
People and buildings inside the perimeter
GHSL 2025Inside the perimeter there were about 7.3 hectares of built-up land and about 900 residents (GHSL 2025, satellite-based estimate).
This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned. The GHSL 2025 epoch is a projection made from 2020 and earlier data.
Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 15 Feb | 36.3 °C | 12 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 16 Feb | 34.6 °C | 16 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 17 Feb | 35.2 °C | 15 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 18 Feb | 37.5 °C | 13 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 19 Feb | 36.2 °C | 20 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 20 Feb | 37.2 °C | 14 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 21 Feb | 36.9 °C | 19 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 22 Feb after | 37.4 °C | 30 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 23 Feb after | 37.1 °C | 34 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 24 Feb after | 35.0 °C | 45 % | 32 km/h | 2.4 mm | Moderate 14 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
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 · CopernicusOn 19 February 2023 the air beside the fire reached 669 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 430: 29 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
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 · 126Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 5,728 haUhunmwondeFebruary 2021 · 6 days · 4 km away
- 8,760 haEsan West11 February 2023 · 12 days · 23 km away
- 5,536 haUhunmwondeFebruary 2020 · 14 days · 26 km away
- 5,548 haEsan West14 February 2017 · 14 days · 28 km away
- 9,086 haUhunmwonde22 January 2016 · 19 days · 29 km away
- 10,826 haUhunmwondeJanuary 2020 · 29 days · 32 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Esan West fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 11 February 2023 to 21 February 2023 (11 days). The perimeter dates it from 15 February 2023 to 21 February 2023.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 3,064 hectares (30.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 3 municipalities: Uhunmwonde (1,771 ha, 0.8 %); Owan West (707 ha, 1.0 %); Esan West (607 ha, 1.2 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 37.5 °C, humidity dropped to 12 % and gusts hit 39 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 46, 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 · Emergency number and official warnings ›
Satellite cross-check
History of this page · 1 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
- Start date: 15 February 2023 → 11 February 2023.
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
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 15 February 2023 to 21 February 2023. 126 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.
- Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2025, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.
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.