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Mafa fire, March 2019 Mafa, Monguno

Out · last detection 4 Apr 2019, 11:58 UTC

The fire started on 30 March 2019 in Mafa, Nigeria, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,032 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 100th largest in Borno since 2016 (of 457 with a page). Number 19 in Nigeria in 2019, of 106.

Burnt area
4,032ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
6days
30 Mar 2019 – 4 Apr 2019
Municipalities hit
2
local government areas
Started on
30 Mar
2019
Heat detections
107
in a single hotspot: 63 MW
Danger at start
69
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
1.1GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

4 Apr 2019
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 30 Mar4 Apr

How it evolved, day by day

30311234

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

The weather it burned in

43°high
45km/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

45% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,830 ha in 2017.

What happened to each town

  1. Mafa where it started
    2,100 ha reached on 30 Mar
    0.6 %
  2. Monguno
    1,957 ha reached on 31 Mar
    0.8 %

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)
30 Mar 42.0 °C 7 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 69
31 Mar 39.7 °C 10 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 73
1 Apr 39.1 °C 10 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 66
2 Apr 40.6 °C 8 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 69
3 Apr 41.4 °C 7 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 73
4 Apr 43.1 °C 9 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 70
5 Apr after 44.0 °C 8 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 66
6 Apr after 43.4 °C 10 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
7 Apr after 43.3 °C 14 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
8 Apr after 42.9 °C 14 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 65
9 Apr after 42.4 °C 11 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
10 Apr after 42.2 °C 13 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
11 Apr after 42.3 °C 12 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
12 Apr after 42.7 °C 11 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
13 Apr after 42.4 °C 15 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 69
14 Apr after 40.1 °C 26 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 23 Mar 2019
After · 11 Apr 2019

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 · 107Every 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 30 March 2019 and 4 April 2019: 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 4,032 hectares (40.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Mafa (2,100 ha, 0.6 %); Monguno (1,957 ha, 0.8 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 43.1 °C, humidity dropped to 7 % and gusts hit 45 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 73, class Very 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.

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.