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Kachia fire, January 2021 Kachia, Kajuru

Out · last detection 9 Jan 2021, 00:39 UTC

The fire started on 5 January 2021 in Kachia, Nigeria, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,916 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 36th largest in Kaduna since 2016 (of 93 with a page). Number 105 in Nigeria in 2021, of 184.

Burnt area
2,916ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
4days
5 Jan 2021 – 8 Jan 2021
Municipalities hit
2
local government areas
Started on
5 Jan
2021
Heat detections
95
in a single hotspot: 48 MW
Danger at start
48
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
627MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

9 Jan 2021
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 5 Jan8 Jan

How it evolved, day by day

56789

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

The weather it burned in

36°high
46km/h · peak gust
14%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

28% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 833 ha in 2020.

What happened to each town

  1. Kachia where it started
    2,587 ha reached on 5 Jan
    0.6 %
  2. Kajuru
    350 ha reached on 7 Jan
    0.2 %

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.

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)
5 Jan 35.5 °C 17 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
6 Jan 35.3 °C 15 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
7 Jan 35.5 °C 14 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
8 Jan 34.6 °C 18 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
9 Jan after 34.5 °C 16 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
10 Jan after 34.8 °C 16 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
11 Jan after 33.8 °C 17 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
12 Jan after 33.1 °C 18 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
13 Jan after 33.4 °C 17 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
14 Jan after 33.1 °C 17 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
15 Jan after 32.2 °C 17 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
16 Jan after 32.3 °C 19 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
17 Jan after 33.2 °C 17 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
18 Jan after 32.5 °C 17 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 29 Dec 2020
After · 15 Jan 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 · 95Every 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 Kachia fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 5 January 2021 and 8 January 2021: 4 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 2,916 hectares (29.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Kachia (2,587 ha, 0.6 %); Kajuru (350 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 35.5 °C, humidity dropped to 14 % and gusts hit 46 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 55, 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

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.