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Mafa fire, February 2017 Mafa

Out · last detection 15 Feb 2017, 11:46 UTC

The fire started on 4 February 2017 in Mafa, Nigeria, and satellites saw it burning for 11 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 12,460 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 18th largest in Borno since 2016 (of 457 with a page). Number 9 in Nigeria in 2017, of 143.

Burnt area
12,460ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
11days
4 Feb 2017 – 14 Feb 2017
Municipalities hit
1
local government areas
Started on
4 Feb
2017
Heat detections
434
in a single hotspot: 138 MW
Danger at start
47
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
6.3GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

15 Feb 2017
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 4 Feb14 Feb

How it evolved, day by day

456789101112131415

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

The weather it burned in

34°high
40km/h · peak gust
8%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

16% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,277 ha in 2016. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,941 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Mafa where it started
    12,543 ha reached on 4 Feb
    3.7 %

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)
4 Feb 32.0 °C 14 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
5 Feb 32.8 °C 10 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
6 Feb 32.8 °C 12 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
7 Feb 33.4 °C 9 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
8 Feb 33.0 °C 11 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
9 Feb 33.3 °C 10 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
10 Feb 32.7 °C 10 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
11 Feb 34.4 °C 11 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
12 Feb 34.3 °C 8 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
13 Feb 31.8 °C 12 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
14 Feb 30.3 °C 13 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
15 Feb after 30.5 °C 14 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
16 Feb after 30.3 °C 12 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
17 Feb after 29.0 °C 14 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
18 Feb after 28.7 °C 12 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
19 Feb after 29.8 °C 11 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
20 Feb after 31.8 °C 10 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
21 Feb after 33.1 °C 9 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
22 Feb after 33.8 °C 8 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
23 Feb after 34.9 °C 8 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
24 Feb after 34.3 °C 9 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 28 Jan 2017
After · 21 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 · 434Every 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 Mafa fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 4 February 2017 and 14 February 2017: 11 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 12,460 hectares (124.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Mafa (12,543 ha, 3.7 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 34.4 °C, humidity dropped to 8 % and gusts hit 40 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 60, 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
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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.