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Kurmi fire, 20 February 2017 Kurmi

Out · last detection 25 Feb 2017, 00:52 UTC

The fire started on 20 February 2017 in Kurmi, Nigeria, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,160 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 52th largest in Taraba since 2016 (of 160 with a page). Number 56 in Nigeria in 2017, of 143.

Burnt area
3,160ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
6days
20 Feb 2017 – 25 Feb 2017
Municipalities hit
1
local government areas
Started on
20 Feb
2017
Heat detections
137
in a single hotspot: 121 MW
Danger at start
46
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
1.9GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

25 Feb 2017
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 20 Feb25 Feb

How it evolved, day by day

202122232425

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

The weather it burned in

36°high
37km/h · peak gust
7%lowest humidity

It had gone 25 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.0 mm on 7 Mar.

This area had burned before

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

What happened to each town

  1. Kurmi where it started
    3,181 ha reached on 13 Feb
    0.7 %

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)
20 Feb 32.9 °C 9 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
21 Feb 33.8 °C 10 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
22 Feb 34.5 °C 9 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
23 Feb 35.4 °C 7 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
24 Feb 35.6 °C 7 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
25 Feb 35.0 °C 8 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
26 Feb after 34.3 °C 10 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
27 Feb after 34.3 °C 10 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
28 Feb after 35.1 °C 7 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
1 Mar after 35.1 °C 10 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
2 Mar after 34.1 °C 19 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
3 Mar after 35.6 °C 14 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
4 Mar after 35.7 °C 8 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
5 Mar after 34.5 °C 17 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
6 Mar after 32.9 °C 31 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
7 Mar after 33.7 °C 28 % 37 km/h 2.0 mm High 22

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 13 Feb 2017
After · 4 Mar 2017

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 · 137Every 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 Kurmi fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 20 February 2017 and 25 February 2017: 6 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 3,160 hectares (31.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Kurmi (3,181 ha, 0.7 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 35.6 °C, humidity dropped to 7 % and gusts hit 37 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 49, class Very high.
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
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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.