Burned area
satellite only2,962ha
Perimeter published by GWIS (Copernicus).
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus)
- Date
- 21 Jan 2025 – 22 Jan 2025
+− cross-check
No official record is matched to this page to compare it with.
NG · Nigeria · –
Kala Balge fire, January 2025 Kala Balge
Out · last detection 22 Jan 2025, 12:49 UTC
The fire started on 21 January 2025 in Kala Balge, Nigeria, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,962 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 137th largest in Borno since 2016 (of 342 with a page). Number 32 in Nigeria in 2025, of 67.
Use this data
Compare with…
Use this data
Fire page data · version 2026-10-24matches 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 only2days
21 Jan 2025 to 22 Jan 2025: first and last day with fire on the page.
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
- Date
- last detection: 22 Jan 2025, 12:49 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 only21 Jan 2025
First day with fire seen by the satellites or the perimeter.
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
- Date
- 21 Jan 2025
+− cross-check
No official record is matched to this page, so the alert time and the cause are not known here.
Hotspots
satellite only80
VIIRS detections at 375 m. Most intense hotspot: 198 MW.
- Source
- NASA FIRMS · VIIRS (Suomi NPP)
- Date
- 21 Jan 2025 – 22 Jan 2025
+− 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 only2,694MW
Total radiative power on 21 January 2025; hotspots that day: 63.
- Source
- NASA FIRMS · VIIRS (FRP)
- Date
- 21 Jan 2025
+− 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
model52.3FWI · extreme
Fire Weather Index (Canadian system) computed by WorldFires for the day the fire started. Consecutive days without rain before: 60.
- Source
- WorldFires calculation (Canadian FWI system)
- Date
- 21 Jan 2025, 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
model37.3°C · 13% RH
High of 37.3 °C and minimum humidity of 13% on 21 January 2025; gusts of 34 km/h on 22 January 2025.
- Source
- weather model at the fire’s grid cell
- Date
- 21 Jan 2025 – 22 Jan 2025
- 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≈ 1,400people
Estimated residents inside the perimeter and 1.8 ha of built-up area (100 m grid, epoch 2025).
- 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 GHSLPopulation and built-up area computed
-
· reconstructed weatherWeather and FWI computed from the ERA5 reanalysis
What was saved on 24 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
- 2,962 ha
- Dates
- 21 Jan 2025 – 22 Jan 2025
- Name
- Kala Balge
- Official record
- —
Versioned permanent link
https://worldfires.org/en/fire/kala-balge-2025-01?v=2026-10-24A 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-2025-01.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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2025-01-21 | 63 | 2,694 | 37.3 | 17.9 | 13 | 15.5 | 30.6 | 0 | 52.3 | extremo | 1 |
| 2025-01-22 | 17 | 445 | 36 | 18.1 | 11 | 16.5 | 34.2 | 0 | 53.9 | extremo | 1 |
| 2025-01-23 | 0 | 0 | 36.3 | 19.1 | 11 | 18.1 | 35.6 | 0 | 56.3 | extremo | 0 |
| 2025-01-24 | 0 | 0 | 35 | 19.4 | 11 | 16.1 | 34.9 | 0 | 54.1 | extremo | 0 |
| 2025-01-25 | 0 | 0 | 35 | 17.4 | 10 | 14.3 | 29.9 | 0 | 52.3 | extremo | 0 |
| 2025-01-26 | 0 | 0 | 35 | 16 | 9 | 13.6 | 27 | 0 | 51.8 | extremo | 0 |
| 2025-01-27 | 0 | 0 | 34.5 | 15.1 | 10 | 15.7 | 31.7 | 0 | 54.7 | extremo | 0 |
| 2025-01-28 | 0 | 0 | 33 | 15.5 | 12 | 14.7 | 32 | 0 | 53.8 | extremo | 0 |
| 2025-01-29 | 0 | 0 | 33.9 | 15.3 | 10 | 16.3 | 32.4 | 0 | 56.2 | extremo | 0 |
| 2025-01-30 | 0 | 0 | 33.4 | 15.3 | 12 | 16.4 | 34.6 | 0 | 56.6 | extremo | 0 |
| 2025-01-31 | 0 | 0 | 34.1 | 15.1 | 13 | 15.3 | 29.5 | 0 | 55.3 | extremo | 0 |
| 2025-02-01 | 0 | 0 | 35.3 | 14.6 | 11 | 12.7 | 22.7 | 0 | 52.4 | extremo | 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
- 2,962ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 2days
- 21 Jan 2025 – 22 Jan 2025
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- local government areas
- Started on
- 21 Jan
- 2025
- Heat detections
- 80
- in a single hotspot: 198 MW
- Danger at start
- 52
- Extreme · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 1.6GW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
HOTSPOTS BY DAY
21 Jan22 Jan
22 Jan 2025
How it evolved, day by day
21 Jan
22 Jan
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
34km/h · peak gust
11%lowest humidity
It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
62% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 43 ha in 2018, 483 ha in 2019, 2 ha in 2021, 1,214 ha in 2022, 1 ha in 2023, 145 ha in 2024.
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 started2,980 ha reached on 21 Jan0.9 %
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 2025Built-up area1.8 ha
Residents≈ 1,400
Inside the perimeter there were about 1.8 hectares of built-up land and about 1,400 residents (GHSL 2025, 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. The GHSL 2025 epoch is a projection made from 2020 and earlier data.
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: 28 % of the area in Nigeria 60 days without rain: 42 % of the area in Nigeria
| Day | High | Min. humidity | Peak gust | Rain | Danger (FWI) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 21 Jan | 37.3 °C | 13 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 22 Jan | 36.0 °C | 11 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 23 Jan after | 36.3 °C | 11 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 56 |
| 24 Jan after | 35.0 °C | 11 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 25 Jan after | 35.0 °C | 10 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 26 Jan after | 35.0 °C | 9 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 27 Jan after | 34.5 °C | 10 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 55 |
| 28 Jan after | 33.0 °C | 12 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 29 Jan after | 33.9 °C | 10 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 56 |
| 30 Jan after | 33.4 °C | 12 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 57 |
| 31 Jan after | 34.1 °C | 13 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 55 |
| 1 Feb after | 35.3 °C | 11 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
Its twins: fires that started in the same weather
It started with an FWI of 52.3, a minimum humidity of 13% and more than two months without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 32.
FWI at the start
52.3
Minimum humidity
13 %
Days without rain
60+
this fire
chosen twins
rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar
Outlines of the closest twins
This fire · Kala Balge fire, January 2025
2,962 ha
2 days
FWI 52.3
Min. humidity 13 %
Zina fire, January 2019
1,258 ha
15 days
FWI 52.2
Min. humidity 13 %
90 km away, in 2019
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
Kala Balge fire, December 2024
2,018 ha
4 days
FWI 52.0
Min. humidity 12 %
12 km away, in 2024
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
Mayo-Lemié fire, December 2021
2,386 ha
13 days
FWI 52.6
Min. humidity 13 %
139 km away, in 2021
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
Logone-Birni fire, May 2020
1,185 ha
4 days
FWI 54.7
Min. humidity 13 %
36 km away, in 2020
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
Mafa fire, February 2023
2,291 ha
19 days
FWI 52.1
Min. humidity 14 %
123 km away, in 2023
First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.
What happened to them
- 10 days
- median duration
- 2,047 ha
- median area
- 100 %
- went past 1,000 ha
- —
- rain at the end (median; 0 of 32 had it)
It burned an area similar to its twins (2,962 ha against a median of 2,047 ha) and lasted 2 days, against 10 days.
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
34km/h · max. gust
It was considered over on 22 Jan, and not even 1 mm fell in the following ten days: it went out without rain. None of its 32 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 · 14 Jan 2025
After · 29 Jan 2025
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 23 January 2025 the air beside the fire reached 84 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 56: 3.8 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
PM2.5 peak84 µg/m³
Days over the guideline7 days
PM10297 µg/m³
Optical depth0.34
WHO 15
19 Jan21 Jan23 Jan25 Jan
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 · 80Every 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?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 21 January 2025 and 22 January 2025: 2 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 2,962 hectares (29.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Kala Balge (2,980 ha, 0.9 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 37.3 °C, humidity dropped to 11 % and gusts hit 34 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: 32. Their median duration was 10 days and their median area 2,047 ha; 100 % went past 1,000 ha. 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 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
No changes since 24 October 2026.
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 from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 80 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 2025, 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.