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Lavun fire, January 2017 Lavun, Mokwa

Out · last detection 1 Feb 2017, 12:48 UTC

The fire started on 24 January 2017 in Lavun, Nigeria, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,975 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 98th largest in Niger since 2016 (of 271 with a page). Number 27 in Nigeria in 2017, of 143.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Mokwa · 2016Lavun · 2021Lavun · 2020Mokwa · 2019

Burnt area
3,975ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
8days
24 Jan 2017 – 31 Jan 2017
Municipalities hit
2
local government areas
Started on
24 Jan
2017
Heat detections
181
in a single hotspot: 51 MW
Danger at start
51
Extreme · FWI index
Average daily power
80MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 24 Jan31 Jan
1 Feb 2017

How it evolved, day by day

24 Jan 2017 · 109 MW · 12 25 Jan 2017 · 85 MW · 25 26 Jan 2017 · 267 MW · 51 27 Jan 2017 · 44 MW · 9 28 Jan 2017 · 76 MW · 20 29 Jan 2017 · 19 MW · 4 30 Jan 2017 · 9 MW · 1 31 Jan 2017 · 49 MW · 10 1 Feb 2017 · 58 MW · 12
24 Jan 26 Jan 28 Jan 30 Jan 1 Feb

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

The weather it burned in

37°high
35km/h · peak gust
7%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

31% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,215 ha in 2016.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 2.5% of the area of London (40 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

  1. Lavun where it started
    2,516 ha reached on 24 Jan
    0.7 %
  2. Mokwa
    1,485 ha reached on 24 Jan
    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)
24 Jan 37.0 °C 10 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
25 Jan 36.0 °C 8 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
26 Jan 36.4 °C 7 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
27 Jan 36.2 °C 18 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
28 Jan 36.9 °C 16 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
29 Jan 37.0 °C 16 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
30 Jan 36.9 °C 22 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
31 Jan 37.3 °C 18 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
1 Feb after 37.1 °C 9 % 17 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
2 Feb after 36.8 °C 21 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
3 Feb after 36.1 °C 17 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
4 Feb after 37.0 °C 10 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
5 Feb after 36.7 °C 7 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
6 Feb after 36.9 °C 7 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
7 Feb after 36.6 °C 5 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
8 Feb after 36.4 °C 4 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
9 Feb after 36.8 °C 7 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
10 Feb after 37.0 °C 8 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 17 Jan 2017
After · 7 Feb 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 · 181Every 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 Lavun fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 24 January 2017 and 31 January 2017: 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 3,975 hectares (39.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Lavun (2,516 ha, 0.7 %); Mokwa (1,485 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.3 °C, humidity dropped to 7 % and gusts hit 35 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 53, 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

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.

How we know this
  • Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery.
  • Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 181 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
  • We have not matched this page with any official record.
  • Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.

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.