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Kukawa fire, 14 October 2016 Kukawa

Out · last detection 22 Oct 2016, 13:02 UTC

The fire started on 14 October 2016 in Kukawa, Nigeria, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,978 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 194th largest in Borno since 2016 (of 457 with a page). Number 71 in Nigeria in 2016, of 198.

Burnt area
2,978ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
8days
14 Oct 2016 – 21 Oct 2016
Municipalities hit
1
local government areas
Started on
14 Oct
2016
Heat detections
134
in a single hotspot: 41 MW
Danger at start
79
Very extreme · FWI index
Energy released
1.4GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

22 Oct 2016
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 14 Oct21 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

1415161718192022

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

The weather it burned in

42°high
46km/h · peak gust
3%lowest humidity

It had gone 23 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

What happened to each town

  1. Kukawa where it started
    2,141 ha reached on 7 Oct
    0.4 %

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)
14 Oct 41.8 °C 3 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 79
15 Oct 41.1 °C 5 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 81
16 Oct 41.6 °C 4 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 77
17 Oct 40.9 °C 6 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 85
18 Oct 40.5 °C 8 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 88
19 Oct 39.1 °C 20 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
20 Oct 39.7 °C 10 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 77
21 Oct 39.5 °C 9 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 74
22 Oct after 38.5 °C 10 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 82
23 Oct after 37.7 °C 9 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 79
24 Oct after 37.9 °C 10 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 76
25 Oct after 38.0 °C 14 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 79
26 Oct after 37.7 °C 14 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 80
27 Oct after 37.3 °C 11 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 80
28 Oct after 37.4 °C 12 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 75
29 Oct after 38.8 °C 15 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 67
30 Oct after 38.6 °C 17 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 65
31 Oct after 39.7 °C 13 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 73

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 7 Oct 2016
After · 28 Oct 2016

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 · 134Every 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 Kukawa fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 14 October 2016 and 21 October 2016: 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 2,978 hectares (29.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Kukawa (2,141 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 41.8 °C, humidity dropped to 3 % and gusts hit 46 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 88, class Very 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.