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Faskari fire, November 2021 Faskari

Out · last detection 6 Dec 2021, 00:34 UTC

The fire started on 30 November 2021 in Faskari, Nigeria, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,223 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 3th largest in Katsina since 2016 (of 29 with a page). Number 17 in Nigeria in 2021, of 184.

Burnt area
6,223ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
6days
30 Nov 2021 – 5 Dec 2021
Municipalities hit
1
local government areas
Started on
30 Nov
2021
Heat detections
216
in a single hotspot: 47 MW
Danger at start
42
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
946MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

6 Dec 2021
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 30 Nov5 Dec

How it evolved, day by day

30123456

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

The weather it burned in

33°high
39km/h · peak gust
19%lowest humidity

It had gone 37 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

31% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,945 ha in 2020.

What happened to each town

  1. Faskari where it started
    6,264 ha reached on 30 Nov
    4.0 %

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)
30 Nov 33.1 °C 19 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
1 Dec 32.5 °C 20 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
2 Dec 30.8 °C 24 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
3 Dec 30.5 °C 24 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
4 Dec 31.5 °C 25 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
5 Dec 31.2 °C 23 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
6 Dec after 31.3 °C 21 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
7 Dec after 30.8 °C 22 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
8 Dec after 28.4 °C 22 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
9 Dec after 28.7 °C 23 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
10 Dec after 29.1 °C 20 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
11 Dec after 30.8 °C 18 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
12 Dec after 31.1 °C 20 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
13 Dec after 31.5 °C 20 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
14 Dec after 30.3 °C 15 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
15 Dec after 28.5 °C 21 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 23 Nov 2021
After · 12 Dec 2021

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

Detections table · 216Every 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 Faskari fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 30 November 2021 and 5 December 2021: 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 6,223 hectares (62.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Faskari (6,264 ha, 4.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 33.1 °C, humidity dropped to 19 % 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

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.