Burned area
satellite only5,818ha
Perimeter published by GWIS (Copernicus).
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus)
- Date
- 11 Nov 2022 – 18 Nov 2022
+− cross-check
No official record is matched to this page to compare it with.
NG · Nigeria · –
Kala Balge fire, 11 November 2022 Kala Balge
Out · last detection 18 Nov 2022, 13:14 UTC
The fire started on 11 November 2022 in Kala Balge, Nigeria, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,818 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 38th largest in Borno since 2016 (of 342 with a page). Number 13 in Nigeria in 2022, of 125.
Use this data
Compare with…
Use this data
Fire page data · version 2026-10-27matches the official recordwith caveatssatellite onlymodel
When copying, the sentence is
Tick the figures you want: they make up the lede and the CSV.
Duration by satellite
satellite only8days
11 Nov 2022 to 18 Nov 2022: first and last day with fire on the page.
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
- Date
- last detection: 18 Nov 2022, 13:14 UTC
+− cross-check
Satellites pass a few times a day and cloud or smoke can hide the fire: a lack of detections is not an official extinction. Each country’s emergency service declares a fire contained or out.
Start
satellite only11 Nov 2022
First day with fire seen by the satellites or the perimeter.
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
- Date
- 11 Nov 2022
+− cross-check
No official record is matched to this page, so the alert time and the cause are not known here.
Hotspots
satellite only136
VIIRS detections at 375 m. Most intense hotspot: 75 MW.
- Source
- NASA FIRMS · VIIRS (Suomi NPP)
- Date
- 11 Nov 2022 – 18 Nov 2022
+− cross-check
There is no official record to compare with. Each hotspot is a pixel detected in one satellite pass, not a separate fire.
The worst day
satellite only860MW
Total radiative power on 13 November 2022; hotspots that day: 42.
- Source
- NASA FIRMS · VIIRS (FRP)
- Date
- 13 Nov 2022
+− cross-check
Fire radiative power (FRP) measures the energy the fire gives off when the satellite passes. Added up by day, it compares intensity, not area.
Danger at the start
model50.2FWI · extreme
Fire Weather Index (Canadian system) computed by WorldFires for the day the fire started. Consecutive days without rain before: 37.
- Source
- WorldFires calculation (Canadian FWI system)
- Date
- 11 Nov 2022, local noon
- Model
- ERA5 0,25° (ECMWF · Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com
+− cross-check
This is an index computed from weather model data, not a measurement of the fire nor an official warning. Danger warnings are issued by each country’s authority. Emergency number and official warnings
Weather during the fire
model36.6°C · 13% RH
High of 36.6 °C and minimum humidity of 13% on 11 November 2022; gusts of 31 km/h on 11 November 2022.
- Source
- weather model at the fire’s grid cell
- Date
- 11 Nov 2022 – 18 Nov 2022
- Model
- ERA5 0,25° (ECMWF · Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com
+− cross-check
These are model values for a cell of about 25 km, not from a weather station: they may differ from what was measured on the ground.
Living inside
model≈ 400people
Estimated residents inside the perimeter and 0.45 ha of built-up area (100 m grid, epoch 2020).
- Source
- GHSL R2023A · JRC
- Date
- calculated on 24 October 2026
+− cross-check
This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned.
This page’s change log has been kept since 24 October 2026: every night what it publishes is compared and the difference is logged. Anything earlier is reconstructed from each source’s date and marked as reconstructed.
Show
-
· reconstructed weatherWeather and FWI computed from the ERA5 reanalysis
-
logLast day with fire: 16 November 2022 → 18 November 2022.
-
· reconstructed GHSLPopulation and built-up area computed
What was saved on 27 October 2026
Every night a snapshot of what the page shows is saved. If anything changes, it appears in the list as a log entry.
- Area
- 5,818 ha
- Dates
- 11 Nov 2022 – 18 Nov 2022
- Name
- Kala Balge
- Official record
- —
Versioned permanent link
https://worldfires.org/en/fire/kala-balge-2022-11?v=2026-10-27A version keeps the area, dates, name and official record; the area as it was logged (changes under 2% are not logged). The map, hotspots and weather always show today’s data.
Citation
A lede of about 60 words figures only, no adjectives
CSV for this fire kala-balge-2022-11.csv · daily, no individual hotspots
| fecha | focos_viirs | frp_mw | tmax_c | tmin_c | hr_min_pct | viento_max_kmh | racha_max_kmh | precip_mm | fwi | clase_fwi | dentro_del_incendio |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2022-11-11 | 13 | 96 | 36.6 | 21.7 | 13 | 14.8 | 31.3 | 0 | 50.2 | extremo | 1 |
| 2022-11-12 | 27 | 295 | 36 | 20.8 | 15 | 16.5 | 29.5 | 0 | 52.7 | extremo | 1 |
| 2022-11-13 | 42 | 860 | 35.7 | 21.2 | 16 | 17.4 | 29.2 | 0 | 54.2 | extremo | 1 |
| 2022-11-14 | 22 | 448 | 35.5 | 20.6 | 15 | 16.5 | 25.2 | 0 | 53.6 | extremo | 1 |
| 2022-11-15 | 17 | 256 | 35.9 | 20.2 | 14 | 15.4 | 29.9 | 0 | 52.6 | extremo | 1 |
| 2022-11-16 | 7 | 36 | 35.4 | 20.6 | 13 | 14.9 | 30.6 | 0 | 52.4 | extremo | 1 |
| 2022-11-17 | 0 | 0 | 35.6 | 20.4 | 16 | 13.6 | 28.1 | 0 | 51.1 | extremo | 1 |
| 2022-11-18 | 8 | 67 | 36 | 20.4 | 14 | 12.9 | 28.1 | 0 | 50.6 | extremo | 1 |
| 2022-11-19 | 0 | 0 | 36.5 | 20.3 | 13 | 12.8 | 28.1 | 0 | 50.8 | extremo | 0 |
| 2022-11-20 | 0 | 0 | 36.8 | 21.1 | 14 | 15.7 | 29.5 | 0 | 54.7 | extremo | 0 |
| 2022-11-21 | 0 | 0 | 35.8 | 20.4 | 15 | 14.5 | 27 | 0 | 53.6 | extremo | 0 |
| 2022-11-22 | 0 | 0 | 36.1 | 17.9 | 5 | 13.6 | 27 | 0 | 56.4 | extremo | 0 |
| 2022-11-23 | 0 | 0 | 35 | 18.1 | 10 | 14.7 | 30.2 | 0 | 58.1 | extremo | 0 |
| 2022-11-24 | 0 | 0 | 35.1 | 19 | 11 | 14.3 | 30.6 | 0 | 57.1 | extremo | 0 |
| 2022-11-25 | 0 | 0 | 34.9 | 19 | 12 | 13.9 | 29.2 | 0 | 55.7 | extremo | 0 |
| 2022-11-26 | 0 | 0 | 34.9 | 18.5 | 8 | 12.4 | 26.6 | 0 | 54.2 | extremo | 0 |
| 2022-11-27 | 0 | 0 | 34.5 | 17.8 | 15 | 11.5 | 23 | 0 | 50.4 | extremo | 0 |
| 2022-11-28 | 0 | 0 | 33.9 | 15.7 | 13 | 9.4 | 23.8 | 0 | 48.3 | muy_alto | 0 |
It is generated in your browser from this page’s data: one file per fire, aggregated by day and without individual hotspots.
Live widget for your story
It updates itself while the fire is still active and links to this page. Free, with the attribution shown at the bottom.
Sources for this page: GWIS (Copernicus), NASA FIRMS (VIIRS), ERA5 (ECMWF/Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0), GHSL (JRC). Open-Meteo.com · How we build fire pages: methodology
- Burnt area
- 5,818ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 8days
- 11 Nov 2022 – 18 Nov 2022
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- local government areas
- Started on
- 11 Nov
- 2022
- Heat detections
- 136
- in a single hotspot: 75 MW
- Danger at start
- 50
- Extreme · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 294MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
HOTSPOTS BY DAY
11 Nov18 Nov
18 Nov 2022
How it evolved, day by day
11 Nov
13 Nov
15 Nov
18 Nov
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
37°high
31km/h · peak gust
13%lowest humidity
It had gone 37 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
6% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 346 ha in 2019.
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
-
Kala Balge where it started5,849 ha reached on 11 Nov1.8 %
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.
People and buildings inside the perimeter
GHSL 2020Built-up area0.45 ha
Residents≈ 400
Inside the perimeter there were about 0.45 hectares of built-up land and about 400 residents (GHSL 2020, satellite-based estimate).
This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned.
Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu
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)
Started with Very dry air: 27 % of the area in Nigeria
| Day | High | Min. humidity | Peak gust | Rain | Danger (FWI) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 11 Nov | 36.6 °C | 13 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 50 |
| 12 Nov | 36.0 °C | 15 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 13 Nov | 35.7 °C | 16 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 14 Nov | 35.5 °C | 15 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 15 Nov | 35.9 °C | 14 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 16 Nov | 35.4 °C | 13 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 17 Nov | 35.6 °C | 16 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 18 Nov | 36.0 °C | 14 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 19 Nov after | 36.5 °C | 13 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 20 Nov after | 36.8 °C | 14 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 55 |
| 21 Nov after | 35.8 °C | 15 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 22 Nov after | 36.1 °C | 5 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 56 |
| 23 Nov after | 35.0 °C | 10 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 58 |
| 24 Nov after | 35.1 °C | 11 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 57 |
| 25 Nov after | 34.9 °C | 12 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 56 |
| 26 Nov after | 34.9 °C | 8 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 27 Nov after | 34.5 °C | 15 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 50 |
| 28 Nov after | 33.9 °C | 13 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
Its twins: fires that started in the same weather
It started with an FWI of 50.2, a minimum humidity of 13% and 37 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 30.
FWI at the start
50.2
Minimum humidity
13 %
Days without rain
37
this fire
chosen twins
rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar
Outlines of the closest twins
This fire · Kala Balge fire, 11 November 2022
5,818 ha
8 days
FWI 50.2
Min. humidity 13 %
Kala Balge fire, November 2019
2,822 ha
3 days
FWI 50.3
Min. humidity 13 %
7 km away, in 2019
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
Monguno fire, October 2017
2,563 ha
4 days
FWI 48.1
Min. humidity 14 %
138 km away, in 2017
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
Waza fire, December 2016
1,111 ha
3 days
FWI 49.0
Min. humidity 13 %
42 km away, in 2016
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
Monguno fire, November 2017
3,049 ha
5 days
FWI 48.2
Min. humidity 15 %
133 km away, in 2017
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
Ngala fire, November 2016
2,178 ha
3 days
FWI 53.2
Min. humidity 15 %
91 km away, in 2016
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
What happened to them
- 4 days
- median duration
- 2,251 ha
- median area
- 100 %
- went past 1,000 ha
- —
- rain at the end (median; 0 of 30 had it)
It was 2.6 times larger than the median of its twins and lasted 8 days, against 4 days.
None of its 30 twins burned more. The weather on the first day does not explain everything: the wind in the following days, the fuel and the firefighting also count. In none of them did 1 mm fall in the ten days after the end: they all went out without rain.
This is a bank of analogues: it shows what usually happens, not what will happen. With fewer than 15 twins we give no figures. How we calculate it
How it ended
—first rain
—no rain in ten days
31km/h · max. gust
It was considered over on 18 Nov, and not even 1 mm fell in the following ten days: it went out without rain. None of its 30 twins had rain when they ended.
Weather on this page: Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)
How a twin is chosen
- Same area: fires that have already ended, less than 250 km from this one, since 2016.
- Same start: we compare the FWI on the first day, the minimum humidity that day and the run of days without rain before it. The slider sets how much they may differ.
- Only pages with final weather data (ERA5 reanalysis) calculated in the same way as this fire’s; agricultural and grass burns and pages with data under review are left out.
- Fires burning at the same time as this one (a week before or after) are left out: they share the same spell of weather and do not count as a precedent.
- They are sorted by similarity, and the outlines of the first five are drawn.
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
↔
Before · 4 Nov 2022
After · 25 Nov 2022
Sentinel-2 did not pass over on that day. Try another date, or use false colour, which is daily.
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 16 November 2022 the air beside the fire reached 71 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 40: 2.7 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
PM2.5 peak71 µg/m³
Days over the guideline11 days
PM10120 µg/m³
Optical depth0.61
WHO 15
9 Nov12 Nov15 Nov18 Nov
Good
Fair
Moderate
Poor
Very poor
Extremely poor
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 · 136Every 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 time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Kala Balge fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 11 November 2022 to 18 November 2022 (8 days). The perimeter dates it from 11 November 2022 to 16 November 2022.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 5,818 hectares (58.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Kala Balge (5,849 ha, 1.8 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 36.6 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 31 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 54, 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.
- How did the fires that started in similar weather in this area end?
- Fires less than 250 km away that started since 2016 with a similar FWI, humidity and dry spell: 30. Their median duration was 4 days and their median area 2,251 ha; 100 % went past 1,000 ha. None of its 30 twins burned more. The weather on the first day does not explain everything: the wind in the following days, the fuel and the firefighting also count. In none of them did 1 mm fall in the ten days after the end: they all went out without rain.
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 · 1 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
- Last day with fire: 16 November 2022 → 18 November 2022.
RSS Changes to this page With cross-checks and a citable version
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 11 November 2022 to 16 November 2022. 136 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.
- Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2020, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.
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.