Faskari fire, December 2024 Faskari
The fire started on 26 December 2024 in Faskari, Nigeria, and satellites saw it burning for 12 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,438 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 9th largest in Katsina since 2016 (of 29 with a page). Number 40 in Nigeria in 2024, of 121.
The power measured by the satellite is low (16.5 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 3,438ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 12days
- 26 Dec 2024 – 6 Jan 2025
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- local government areas
- Started on
- 26 Dec
- 2024
- Heat detections
- 95
- in a single hotspot: 17 MW
- Danger at start
- 44
- Very high · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 99MW
- 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 more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
97% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,558 ha in 2020, 2,225 ha in 2021, 2,121 ha in 2022, 1,789 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 3,335 ha that had burned before.
- 2,145 ha Faskari fire, November 2021 6,223 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,851 ha Faskari fire, December 2022 2,642 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,789 ha Faskari fire, December 2023 2,335 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,558 ha Faskari fire, December 2020 2,693 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
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
-
Faskari where it started3,461 ha reached on 1 Jan2.2 %
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.
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 | 30.0 °C | 23 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 2 Jan | 31.6 °C | 23 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 3 Jan | 32.2 °C | 22 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 4 Jan | 32.1 °C | 21 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 5 Jan | 28.4 °C | 21 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 6 Jan | 29.0 °C | 21 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 7 Jan after | 28.1 °C | 24 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 8 Jan after | 29.2 °C | 19 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 9 Jan after | 27.0 °C | 20 % | 49 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 10 Jan after | 27.2 °C | 21 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 11 Jan after | 26.6 °C | 21 % | 52 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 12 Jan after | 26.6 °C | 23 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 13 Jan after | 29.8 °C | 22 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 14 Jan after | 30.7 °C | 23 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 15 Jan after | 31.1 °C | 23 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 16 Jan after | 32.2 °C | 21 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
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 31 December 2024 the air beside the fire reached 320 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 231: 15 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 · 95Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 6,223 haFaskariNovember 2021 · 16 days · 2 km away
- 2,740 haFaskari27 November 2023 · 20 days · 11 km away
- 2,736 haFaskari30 November 2023 · 19 days · 19 km away
- 4,272 haTsafe31 December 2025 · 10 days · 31 km away
- 2,983 haKankaraDecember 2024 · 12 days · 31 km away
- 4,691 haFaskariJanuary 2021 · 13 days · 34 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Faskari fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 26 December 2024 to 6 January 2025 (12 days). The perimeter dates it from 1 January 2025 to 6 January 2025.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 3,438 hectares (34.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Faskari (3,461 ha, 2.2 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 32.2 °C, humidity dropped to 21 % and gusts hit 41 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 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
No changes since 24 October 2026.
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 1 January 2025 to 6 January 2025. 95 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.
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.