Gwer West fire, 26 December 2017 Gwer West
The fire started on 26 December 2017 in Gwer West, Nigeria, and satellites saw it burning for 23 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 10,236 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 5th largest in Benue since 2016 (of 83 with a page). Number 11 in Nigeria in 2017, of 155.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 10,236ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 23days
- 26 Dec 2017 – 17 Jan 2018
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- local government areas
- Started on
- 26 Dec
- 2017
- Heat detections
- 536
- in a single hotspot: 94 MW
- Danger at start
- 49
- Very high · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 230MW
- 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
30% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,726 ha in 2016, 626 ha in 2017. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 3,092 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
-
Gwer West where it started10,305 ha reached on 26 Dec8.3 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 26 Dec | 35.7 °C | 14 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 27 Dec | 36.6 °C | 11 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 28 Dec | 36.8 °C | 12 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 29 Dec | 35.7 °C | 15 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 30 Dec | 37.2 °C | 14 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 50 |
| 31 Dec | 35.4 °C | 11 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 56 |
| 1 Jan | 35.5 °C | 12 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 57 |
| 2 Jan | 34.8 °C | 10 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 56 |
| 3 Jan | 34.8 °C | 11 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 59 |
| 4 Jan | 35.1 °C | 9 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 59 |
| 5 Jan | 34.7 °C | 9 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 57 |
| 6 Jan | 35.1 °C | 7 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 7 Jan | 35.5 °C | 11 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 50 |
| 8 Jan | 36.6 °C | 11 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 9 Jan | 36.4 °C | 10 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 50 |
| 10 Jan | 36.4 °C | 16 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 11 Jan | 35.7 °C | 21 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 12 Jan | 37.4 °C | 12 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 13 Jan | 36.2 °C | 11 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 14 Jan | 35.6 °C | 9 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 15 Jan | 36.8 °C | 9 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 50 |
| 16 Jan | 36.1 °C | 11 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 50 |
| 17 Jan | 37.0 °C | 8 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 18 Jan after | 37.1 °C | 7 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 19 Jan after | 36.3 °C | 9 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 20 Jan after | 36.6 °C | 6 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 21 Jan after | 37.4 °C | 12 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 22 Jan after | 37.7 °C | 6 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 56 |
| 23 Jan after | 37.0 °C | 6 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 60 |
| 24 Jan after | 33.6 °C | 5 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 57 |
| 25 Jan after | 35.6 °C | 9 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 62 |
| 26 Jan after | 37.2 °C | 8 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 60 |
| 27 Jan after | 36.6 °C | 12 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 62 |
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.
Detections table · 536Every 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 Gwer West fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 26 December 2017 to 17 January 2018 (23 days). The perimeter dates it from 2 January 2018 to 10 January 2018.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 10,236 hectares (102.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Gwer West (10,305 ha, 8.3 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 37.4 °C, humidity dropped to 7 % and gusts hit 44 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 59, 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 · 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; 3 polygons grouped in this page.
- Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 2 January 2018 to 10 January 2018. 536 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.