How long did the Fakai fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 6 January 2025 and 11 January 2025: 6 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 2,475 hectares (24.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 2 municipalities: Fakai (1,269 ha, 0.7 %); Wasagu-Danko (1,223 ha, 0.3 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 34.3 °C, humidity dropped to 16 % and gusts hit 46 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 58, 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 · 2025-01-06 → 2025-01-11

Fakai fire, January 2025 Fakai, Wasagu-Danko

Out · last detection 11 Jan 2025, 12:55 UTC

The fire started on 6 January 2025 in Fakai, Nigeria, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,475 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 28th largest in Kebbi since 2016 (of 42 with a page). Number 209 in Nigeria in 2025, of 294.

Burnt area: 2,475ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 6days; 6 Jan 2025 – 11 Jan 2025
Municipalities hit: 2; local government areas
Started on: 6 Jan; 2025
Heat detections: 68; in a single hotspot: 31 MW
Danger at start: 54; Extreme · FWI index
Average daily power: 62MW; detected power per day, on average

Play back 11 Jan 2025

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 6 Jan11 Jan

How it evolved, day by day

6 Jan 7 Jan 8 Jan 9 Jan 10 Jan 11 Jan

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

The weather it burned in

34°high

46km/h · peak gust

16%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

35% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 863 ha in 2023.

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

Fakai where it started

1,269 ha reached on 6 Jan

0.7 %
Wasagu-Danko

1,223 ha reached on 9 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	Danger (FWI)
6 Jan	34.3 °C	18 %	39 km/h	Extreme 54
7 Jan	33.6 °C	20 %	39 km/h	Extreme 52
8 Jan	32.8 °C	16 %	40 km/h	Extreme 53
9 Jan	31.5 °C	16 %	46 km/h	Extreme 58
10 Jan	31.0 °C	17 %	44 km/h	Extreme 57
11 Jan	31.4 °C	19 %	45 km/h	Extreme 57
12 Jan after	31.1 °C	18 %	41 km/h	Extreme 54
13 Jan after	33.9 °C	16 %	31 km/h	Very high 47
14 Jan after	34.6 °C	18 %	27 km/h	Very high 46
15 Jan after	35.0 °C	19 %	26 km/h	Very high 45
16 Jan after	36.1 °C	21 %	27 km/h	Very high 46
17 Jan after	35.1 °C	17 %	34 km/h	Very high 50
18 Jan after	36.3 °C	17 %	34 km/h	Extreme 51
19 Jan after	36.4 °C	19 %	20 km/h	Very high 44
20 Jan after	36.0 °C	20 %	17 km/h	Very high 44
21 Jan after	36.8 °C	19 %	30 km/h	Very high 48

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 30 Dec 2024

After · 18 Jan 2025

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.

The smoke

CAMS · Copernicus

On 11 January 2025 the air beside the fire reached 196 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 154: 10 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak196 µg/m³

Days over the guideline11 days

PM101,155 µg/m³

Optical depth1.23

WHO 15

4567891011121314

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 · 68Every 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 Fakai fire last?: GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 6 January 2025 and 11 January 2025: 6 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 2,475 hectares (24.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 2 municipalities: Fakai (1,269 ha, 0.7 %); Wasagu-Danko (1,223 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 34.3 °C, humidity dropped to 16 % and gusts hit 46 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 58, 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

Satellite cross-check

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

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?

Dates or duration Place or towns Burned area Name It was not a wildfire Same fire as another page Something else

What really happened?

Your connection to the fire (optional) Email (optional)

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 from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 68 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