Kaga fire, November 2025 Kaga, Konduga
The fire started on 2 November 2025 in Kaga, Nigeria, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,028 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 55th largest in Borno since 2016 (of 457 with a page). Number 57 in Nigeria in 2025, of 294.
The power measured by the satellite is low (17.0 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
- 6,028ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 8days
- 2 Nov 2025 – 9 Nov 2025
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- local government areas
- Started on
- 2 Nov
- 2025
- Heat detections
- 105
- in a single hotspot: 17 MW
- Danger at start
- 36
- High · FWI index
- Energy released
- 559MW
- 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.
The weather it burned in
It had gone 20 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
91% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 64 ha in 2016, 1,608 ha in 2017, 4,192 ha in 2019, 448 ha in 2020, 997 ha in 2021, 46 ha in 2022, 1,688 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 5,485 ha that had burned before.
- 4,186 ha Damboa fire, December 2019 12,660 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,127 ha Kaga fire, February 2023 3,110 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 947 ha Damboa fire, January 2021 3,779 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 448 ha Konduga fire, January 2020 2,410 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 6 ha Damboa fire, February 2016 2,244 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 6 ha Konduga fire, February 2019 3,087 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
Kaga where it started5,325 ha reached on 2 Nov1.4 %
-
735 ha reached on 6 Nov0.1 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2 Nov | 36.2 °C | 21 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 3 Nov | 36.5 °C | 22 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 4 Nov | 35.5 °C | 23 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 5 Nov | 37.3 °C | 18 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 6 Nov | 36.5 °C | 18 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 7 Nov | 36.3 °C | 19 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 8 Nov | 36.5 °C | 20 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 9 Nov | 36.6 °C | 21 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 10 Nov after | 36.2 °C | 23 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 11 Nov after | 36.1 °C | 16 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 12 Nov after | 36.0 °C | 18 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 13 Nov after | 35.9 °C | 23 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 14 Nov after | 36.0 °C | 22 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 15 Nov after | 34.1 °C | 22 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 16 Nov after | 33.2 °C | 22 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 17 Nov after | 33.9 °C | 20 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 18 Nov after | 35.5 °C | 19 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 19 Nov after | 36.6 °C | 16 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
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 6 November 2025 the air beside the fire reached 48 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 34: 2.3 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 · 105Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 12,660 haDamboa1 December 2019 · 10 days · 4 km away
- 6,159 haKonduga2 November 2021 · 3 days · 28 km away
- 4,372 haDamboa23 November 2019 · 4 days · 30 km away
- 5,876 haDamboa18 November 2025 · 5 days · 31 km away
- 6,806 haKaga1 November 2016 · 8 days · 32 km away
- 5,975 haDamboa27 November 2025 · 6 days · 32 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Kaga fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 2 November 2025 and 9 November 2025: 8 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 6,028 hectares (60.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Kaga (5,325 ha, 1.4 %); Konduga (735 ha, 0.1 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 37.3 °C, humidity dropped to 18 % and gusts hit 33 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 43, 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
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.