Fakai fire, December 2025 Fakai
The fire started on 29 December 2025 in Fakai, Nigeria, and satellites saw it burning for 13 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,353 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 31th largest in Kebbi since 2016 (of 42 with a page). Number 221 in Nigeria in 2025, of 294.
The power measured by the satellite is low (14.8 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.
- Burnt area
- 2,353ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 13days
- 29 Dec 2025 – 10 Jan 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- local government areas
- Started on
- 29 Dec
- 2025
- Heat detections
- 67
- in a single hotspot: 15 MW
- Energy released
- 213MW
- sum of detected power
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.
This area had burned before
92% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 844 ha in 2016, 1,410 ha in 2017, 846 ha in 2018, 959 ha in 2020, 797 ha in 2021, 158 ha in 2022, 1,934 ha in 2023, 1,537 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,156 ha that had burned before.
- 1,934 ha Fakai fire, December 2023 3,813 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 846 ha Fakai fire, December 2018 2,288 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 797 ha Fakai fire, January 2021 2,949 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 111 ha Fakai fire, December 2016 2,207 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
Fakai where it started2,368 ha reached on 28 Dec1.2 %
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.
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 10 January 2026 the air beside the fire reached 171 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 137: 9.1 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 · 67Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Fakai fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 29 December 2025 and 10 January 2026: 13 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 2,353 hectares (23.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Fakai (2,368 ha, 1.2 %).
- 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
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.