Burned area
satellite only2,104ha
Perimeter published by GWIS (Copernicus).
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus)
- Date
- 14 Oct 2026 – 1 Nov 2026
+− cross-check
No official record is matched to this page to compare it with.
NG · Nigeria · –
Kukawa fire, 14 October 2026 Kukawa
Out · last detection 2 Nov 2026, 12:55 UTC
The fire started on 14 October 2026 in Kukawa, Nigeria, and satellites saw it burning for 19 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,104 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
Number 315 in Nigeria in 2026, of 344.
GWIS near-real-time perimeter, from the layer that changed in August 2025: this fire is not compared with fires from earlier years, because since then the GWIS layer gives more and larger perimeters.
Use this data
Compare with…
Suggestions: Abadam · 2017Kukawa · 2018Kaya · 2016Kukawa · 2016
Use this data
Fire page data · version 2026-11-04matches 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 only19days
14 Oct 2026 to 1 Nov 2026: first and last day with fire on the page.
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
- Date
- last detection: 2 Nov 2026, 12:55 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 only14 Oct 2026
First day with fire seen by the satellites or the perimeter.
- Source
- GWIS (Copernicus) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
- Date
- 14 Oct 2026
+− cross-check
No official record is matched to this page, so the alert time and the cause are not known here.
Hotspots
satellite only54
VIIRS detections at 375 m. Most intense hotspot: 87 MW.
- Source
- NASA FIRMS · VIIRS (Suomi NPP)
- Date
- 14 Oct 2026 – 1 Nov 2026
+− 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 only641MW
Total radiative power on 23 October 2026; hotspots that day: 36.
- Source
- NASA FIRMS · VIIRS (FRP)
- Date
- 23 Oct 2026
+− 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
model94.4FWI · very extreme
Fire Weather Index (Canadian system) computed by WorldFires for the day the fire started. Consecutive days without rain before: 12.
- Source
- WorldFires calculation (Canadian FWI system)
- Date
- 14 Oct 2026, local noon
- Model
- ECMWF IFS 0,25° · Open-Meteo.com · provisional
+− 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
model41.5°C · 11% RH
High of 41.5 °C and minimum humidity of 11% on 31 October 2026; gusts of 50 km/h on 15 October 2026.
- Source
- weather model at the fire’s grid cell
- Date
- 14 Oct 2026 – 1 Nov 2026
- Model
- ECMWF IFS 0,25° · Open-Meteo.com · provisional
+− 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.
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 forecast (provisional until ERA5 arrives)
-
logLast day with fire: 27 October 2026 → 1 November 2026.
-
logLast day with fire: 24 October 2026 → 27 October 2026.
-
logArea: 2,013 → 2,104 ha.
-
· reconstructed GHSLPopulation and built-up area computed
Area logged each night
Move the slider to see which area the page published each day.
Versioned permanent link
https://worldfires.org/en/fire/kukawa-2026-10-6?v=2026-11-04A 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 kukawa-2026-10-6.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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026-10-14 | 2 | 8 | 41.1 | 25.1 | 9 | 23.7 | 47.9 | 0 | 94.4 | muy_extremo | 1 |
| 2026-10-15 | 0 | 0 | 40 | 26.4 | 9 | 25.9 | 50.4 | 0 | 100.4 | muy_extremo | 1 |
| 2026-10-16 | 0 | 0 | 39.8 | 26.5 | 13 | 24.8 | 49.3 | 0 | 96.6 | muy_extremo | 1 |
| 2026-10-17 | 0 | 0 | 38.8 | 26 | 12 | 19.3 | 40.3 | 0 | 81.6 | muy_extremo | 1 |
| 2026-10-18 | 0 | 0 | 39.7 | 24.6 | 10 | 21.6 | 44.3 | 0 | 85.9 | muy_extremo | 1 |
| 2026-10-19 | 0 | 0 | 39.4 | 24.7 | 10 | 20.3 | 42.1 | 0 | 87.9 | muy_extremo | 1 |
| 2026-10-20 | 0 | 0 | 39 | 25.9 | 8 | 22.5 | 44.3 | 0 | 92.6 | muy_extremo | 1 |
| 2026-10-21 | 1 | 25 | 39 | 23.3 | 10 | 22.4 | 46.1 | 0 | 95 | muy_extremo | 1 |
| 2026-10-22 | 2 | 8 | 39 | 23.8 | 8 | 23.7 | 48.2 | 0 | 97.9 | muy_extremo | 1 |
| 2026-10-23 | 36 | 641 | 37.7 | 22.6 | 10 | 23.4 | 47.2 | 0 | 98 | muy_extremo | 1 |
| 2026-10-24 | 10 | 100 | 37.7 | 20.9 | 6 | 19.8 | 40.3 | 0 | 88.3 | muy_extremo | 1 |
| 2026-10-25 | 0 | 0 | 38.2 | 20.3 | 7 | 22 | 43.9 | 0 | 92.5 | muy_extremo | 1 |
| 2026-10-26 | 2 | 23 | 38.8 | 20.5 | 8 | 16.5 | 34.6 | 0 | 69.8 | extremo | 1 |
| 2026-10-27 | 1 | 11 | 39.4 | 22.7 | 9 | 17.6 | 36.4 | 0 | 79.6 | muy_extremo | 1 |
| 2026-10-28 | 0 | 0 | 39.1 | 23.5 | 11 | 24.1 | 46.8 | 0 | 101.1 | muy_extremo | 1 |
| 2026-10-29 | 0 | 0 | 39.3 | 23.2 | 11 | 21.5 | 43.9 | 0 | 91 | muy_extremo | 1 |
| 2026-10-30 | 0 | 0 | 40.5 | 24 | 10 | 16.8 | 36 | 0 | 80.8 | muy_extremo | 1 |
| 2026-10-31 | 0 | 0 | 41.5 | 25 | 11 | 20.2 | 41.4 | 0 | 85.3 | muy_extremo | 1 |
| 2026-11-01 | 0 | 0 | 41.2 | 24.7 | 8 | 20.3 | 40.3 | 0 | 90.1 | muy_extremo | 1 |
| 2026-11-02 | 0 | 0 | 40.6 | 24.9 | 6 | 19.1 | 38.2 | 0 | 89.9 | muy_extremo | 0 |
| 2026-11-03 | 0 | 0 | 40.6 | 22.9 | 5 | 19.1 | 41 | 0 | 94.1 | muy_extremo | 0 |
| 2026-11-04 | 0 | 0 | 41.2 | 23.5 | 7 | 20.5 | 41 | 0 | 95.3 | muy_extremo | 0 |
| 2026-11-05 | 0 | 0 | 40.2 | 24.6 | 8 | 26.6 | 54.4 | 0 | 115.3 | muy_extremo | 0 |
| 2026-11-06 | 0 | 0 | 39.7 | 23.7 | 10 | 22.9 | 44.3 | 0 | 99.8 | muy_extremo | 0 |
| 2026-11-07 | 0 | 0 | 40 | 24.3 | 9 | 23.6 | 46.8 | 0 | 102.3 | muy_extremo | 0 |
| 2026-11-08 | 0 | 0 | 40 | 23.9 | 9 | 22.1 | 47.2 | 0 | 102.3 | muy_extremo | 0 |
| 2026-11-09 | 0 | 0 | 40.1 | 25.4 | 9 | 22.7 | 47.5 | 0 | 101.5 | muy_extremo | 0 |
| 2026-11-10 | 0 | 0 | 38.7 | 24.6 | 9 | 23.3 | 46.8 | 0 | 104.1 | muy_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), ECMWF IFS · Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0), GHSL (JRC). Open-Meteo.com · How we build fire pages: methodology
- Burnt area
- 2,104ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 19days
- 14 Oct 2026 – 1 Nov 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- local government areas
- Started on
- 14 Oct
- 2026
- Heat detections
- 54
- in a single hotspot: 87 MW
- Danger at start
- 94
- Very extreme · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 116MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
HOTSPOTS BY DAY
14 Oct1 Nov
2 Nov 2026
How it evolved, day by day
14 Oct
23 Oct
30 Oct
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
50km/h · peak gust
6%lowest humidity
It had gone 12 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
96% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,179 ha in 2016, 2,785 ha in 2017, 1,521 ha in 2018, 425 ha in 2019, 1,247 ha in 2021. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,019 ha that had burned before.
- 1,801 ha Abadam fire, October 2017 38,184 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,521 ha Kukawa fire, October 2018 32,284 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,399 ha Kaya fire, September 2016 56,565 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 778 ha Kukawa fire, September 2016 5,365 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 599 ha Kaya fire, October 2017 5,500 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 436 ha Abadam fire, October 2021 39,964 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2 ha Kukawa fire, October 2016 2,978 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
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
-
Kukawa where it started1,154 ha reached on 21 Oct0.2 %
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 area< 0.1 ha
Residents< 20
Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (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) · forecast models, provisional until the ERA5 reanalysis arrives
Started with Very dry air: 27 % of the area in Nigeria
| Day | High | Min. humidity | Peak gust | Rain | Danger (FWI) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 14 Oct | 41.1 °C | 9 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 94 |
| 15 Oct | 40.0 °C | 9 % | 50 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 100 |
| 16 Oct | 39.8 °C | 13 % | 49 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 97 |
| 17 Oct | 38.8 °C | 12 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 82 |
| 18 Oct | 39.7 °C | 10 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 86 |
| 19 Oct | 39.4 °C | 10 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 88 |
| 20 Oct | 39.0 °C | 8 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 93 |
| 21 Oct | 39.0 °C | 10 % | 46 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 95 |
| 22 Oct | 39.0 °C | 8 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 98 |
| 23 Oct | 37.7 °C | 10 % | 47 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 98 |
| 24 Oct | 37.7 °C | 6 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 88 |
| 25 Oct | 38.2 °C | 7 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 92 |
| 26 Oct | 38.8 °C | 8 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 70 |
| 27 Oct | 39.4 °C | 9 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 80 |
| 28 Oct | 39.1 °C | 11 % | 47 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 101 |
| 29 Oct | 39.3 °C | 11 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 91 |
| 30 Oct | 40.5 °C | 10 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 81 |
| 31 Oct | 41.5 °C | 11 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 85 |
| 1 Nov | 41.2 °C | 8 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 90 |
| 2 Nov after | 40.6 °C | 6 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 90 |
| 3 Nov after | 40.6 °C | 5 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 94 |
| 4 Nov after | 41.2 °C | 7 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 95 |
| 5 Nov after | 40.2 °C | 8 % | 54 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 115 |
| 6 Nov after | 39.7 °C | 10 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 100 |
| 7 Nov after | 40.0 °C | 9 % | 47 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 102 |
| 8 Nov after | 40.0 °C | 9 % | 47 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 102 |
| 9 Nov after | 40.1 °C | 9 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 102 |
| 10 Nov after | 38.7 °C | 9 % | 47 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 104 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
↔
Before · 7 Oct 2026
After · 8 Nov 2026
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 October 2026 the air beside the fire reached 96 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 50: 3.3 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
PM2.5 peak96 µg/m³
Days over the guideline11 days
PM10314 µg/m³
Optical depth0.47
WHO 15
12 Oct15 Oct18 Oct21 Oct
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 · 54Every 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
- 38,184 haAbadamOctober 2017 · 41 days · 5 km away
- 32,284 haKukawa7 October 2018 · 26 days · 7 km away
- 56,565 haKaya27 September 2016 · 44 days · 14 km away
- 42,926 haFouli2 October 2017 · 20 days · 19 km away
- 30,987 haAbadamOctober 2016 · 48 days · 20 km away
- 39,964 haAbadam1 October 2021 · 44 days · 21 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Kukawa fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 14 October 2026 to 1 November 2026 (19 days). The perimeter dates it from 21 October 2026 to 25 October 2026.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 2,104 hectares (21.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Kukawa (1,154 ha, 0.2 %).
- Is the Kukawa fire still active?
- No fire detections since 2 Nov 2026, 12:55 UTC. A lack of detections is not an official extinction.
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 41.5 °C, humidity dropped to 6 % and gusts hit 50 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 101, 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 · Emergency number and official warnings
Satellite cross-check
History of this page · 3 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
- Last day with fire: 27 October 2026 → 1 November 2026.
- Last day with fire: 24 October 2026 → 27 October 2026.
- Area: 2,013 → 2,104 ha.
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 21 October 2026 to 25 October 2026. 54 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
- We have not matched this page with any official record.
- Weather: ECMWF IFS model, provisional until the ERA5 reanalysis arrives.
- 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.