How long did the Kukawa fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 18 October 2026 and 3 November 2026: 17 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 12,767 hectares (127.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 2 municipalities: Kukawa (11,724 ha, 2.4 %); Abadam (1,127 ha, 0.3 %).

Is the Kukawa fire still active?

No fire detections since 3 Nov 2026, 12:38 UTC. A lack of detections is not an official extinction.

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 41.2 °C, humidity dropped to 7 % and gusts hit 46 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 67, 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.

NG · Nigeria · 2026-10-18 → 2026-11-03

Kukawa fire, 18 October 2026 Kukawa, Abadam

Dying down · last detection 3 Nov 2026, 12:38 UTC

The fire started on 18 October 2026 in Kukawa, Nigeria, and satellites saw it burning for 17 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 12,767 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 19th largest in Borno since 2016 (of 495 with a page). Number 20 in Nigeria in 2026, of 319.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Kukawa · 2018 Abadam · 2016 Kukawa · 2017 Kukawa · 2026

Is it still active?

No detections since 3 Nov 2026, 12:38 UTC. That usually means no flame is visible from space any more, although hotspots may remain. 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.

Burnt area: 12,767ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 17days; 18 Oct 2026 – 3 Nov 2026
Municipalities hit: 2; local government areas
Started on: 18 Oct; 2026
Heat detections: 321; in a single hotspot: 105 MW
Danger at start: 43; Very high · FWI index
Average daily power: 259MW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 18 Oct3 Nov

Play back 3 Nov 2026

How it evolved, day by day

18 Oct 21 Oct 24 Oct 27 Oct 30 Oct 2 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

41°high

46km/h · peak gust

7%lowest humidity

It had gone 4 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

23% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 651 ha in 2016, 34 ha in 2017, 2,818 ha in 2018, 433 ha in 2021. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,892 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

It burned the equivalent of 8.1% of the area of London (128 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

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 started

11,724 ha

2.4 %
Abadam

1,127 ha

0.3 %

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.

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

Day	High	Min. humidity	Peak gust	Danger (FWI)
13 Oct	39.7 °C	12 %	32 km/h	Very high 43
14 Oct	39.7 °C	12 %	38 km/h	Very high 46
15 Oct	39.0 °C	13 %	45 km/h	Extreme 51
16 Oct	38.5 °C	15 %	45 km/h	Extreme 53
17 Oct	37.8 °C	16 %	34 km/h	Very high 47
18 Oct	38.7 °C	13 %	36 km/h	Very high 49
19 Oct	38.4 °C	13 %	36 km/h	Extreme 50
20 Oct	38.2 °C	10 %	41 km/h	Extreme 55
21 Oct	38.3 °C	12 %	40 km/h	Extreme 55
22 Oct	38.5 °C	10 %	41 km/h	Extreme 57
23 Oct	37.2 °C	12 %	41 km/h	Extreme 58
24 Oct	37.0 °C	8 %	34 km/h	Extreme 54
25 Oct	37.4 °C	9 %	40 km/h	Extreme 59
26 Oct	38.0 °C	10 %	29 km/h	Extreme 52
27 Oct	38.7 °C	11 %	31 km/h	Extreme 55
28 Oct	38.6 °C	12 %	46 km/h	Extreme 67
29 Oct	38.8 °C	12 %	39 km/h	Extreme 62
30 Oct	39.8 °C	12 %	31 km/h	Extreme 55
31 Oct	41.2 °C	13 %	37 km/h	Extreme 61
1 Nov	40.7 °C	10 %	34 km/h	Extreme 60
2 Nov	40.1 °C	8 %	35 km/h	Extreme 61
3 Nov	40.1 °C	7 %	36 km/h	Extreme 63

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 11 Oct 2026

After · 3 Nov 2026

Before After

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 · Copernicus

On 23 October 2026 the air beside the fire reached 85 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 44: 2.9 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak85 µg/m³

Days over the guideline13 days

PM10325 µg/m³

Optical depth0.41

WHO 15

1112131415161718192021222324

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 · 321Every 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

All fires in Nigeria ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Kukawa fire last?: GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 18 October 2026 and 3 November 2026: 17 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 12,767 hectares (127.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 2 municipalities: Kukawa (11,724 ha, 2.4 %); Abadam (1,127 ha, 0.3 %).
Is the Kukawa fire still active?: No fire detections since 3 Nov 2026, 12:38 UTC. A lack of detections is not an official extinction.
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 41.2 °C, humidity dropped to 7 % and gusts hit 46 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 67, 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.

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

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

History of this page · 8 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 25 October 2026.

2 November 2026 Area: 8,109 → 12,764 ha.
1 November 2026 Area: 7,138 → 8,109 ha.
30 October 2026 Area: 6,656 → 7,138 ha.
29 October 2026 Area: 6,379 → 6,656 ha.
28 October 2026 Area: 6,018 → 6,379 ha.
27 October 2026 Area: 5,413 → 6,018 ha.
26 October 2026 Area: 3,083 → 5,413 ha.
25 October 2026 Page published (3,083 ha).

RSS Changes to this page

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?

Dates or duration Place or towns Burned area Name It was not a wildfire Same fire as another page Something else

What really happened?

Your connection to the fire (optional) Email (optional)

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.

How we know this

Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery; 2 polygons grouped in this page.
Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 321 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.

How we build fire pages: methodology ›

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.