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Lapai fire, January 2024 Lapai

Out · last detection 12 Feb 2024, 12:17 UTC

The fire started on 28 January 2024 in Lapai, Nigeria, and satellites saw it burning for 15 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,784 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 168th largest in Niger since 2016 (of 271 with a page). Number 58 in Nigeria in 2024, of 118.

Burnt area
2,784ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
15days
28 Jan 2024 – 11 Feb 2024
Municipalities hit
1
local government areas
Started on
28 Jan
2024
Heat detections
171
in a single hotspot: 48 MW
Danger at start
40
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
707MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

12 Feb 2024
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 28 Jan11 Feb

How it evolved, day by day

293013456789101112

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

The weather it burned in

40°high
32km/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

57% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 529 ha in 2019, 902 ha in 2021, 507 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,595 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Lapai where it started
    2,802 ha reached on 21 Jan
    0.9 %

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)
28 Jan 35.7 °C 17 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
29 Jan 36.8 °C 16 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
30 Jan 37.9 °C 16 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
31 Jan 36.5 °C 22 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
1 Feb 36.9 °C 19 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
2 Feb 36.5 °C 11 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
3 Feb 36.4 °C 15 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
4 Feb 36.7 °C 11 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
5 Feb 36.8 °C 12 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
6 Feb 35.9 °C 12 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
7 Feb 37.4 °C 12 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
8 Feb 37.9 °C 11 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
9 Feb 37.5 °C 15 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
10 Feb 39.1 °C 18 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
11 Feb 39.7 °C 20 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
12 Feb after 40.6 °C 17 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
13 Feb after 40.9 °C 21 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
14 Feb after 39.9 °C 21 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
15 Feb after 39.1 °C 21 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
16 Feb after 39.0 °C 13 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
17 Feb after 38.8 °C 21 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
18 Feb after 38.0 °C 26 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
19 Feb after 40.3 °C 21 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
20 Feb after 39.3 °C 25 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
21 Feb after 39.0 °C 29 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 21 Jan 2024
After · 18 Feb 2024

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 · 171Every 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 Lapai fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 28 January 2024 and 11 February 2024: 15 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 2,784 hectares (27.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Lapai (2,802 ha, 0.9 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 39.7 °C, humidity dropped to 11 % and gusts hit 32 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.

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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.