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Mafa fire, 22 October 2025 Mafa

Out · last detection 23 Oct 2025, 12:14 UTC

The fire started on 22 October 2025 in Mafa, Nigeria, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,716 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 240th largest in Borno since 2016 (of 457 with a page). Number 172 in Nigeria in 2025, of 294.

Burnt area
2,716ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
2days
22 Oct 2025 – 23 Oct 2025
Municipalities hit
1
local government areas
Started on
22 Oct
2025
Heat detections
40
in a single hotspot: 90 MW
Danger at start
32
High · FWI index
Energy released
690MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

23 Oct 2025
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 22 Oct23 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

2223

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

The weather it burned in

39°high
21km/h · peak gust
25%lowest humidity

It had gone 16 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

70% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 261 ha in 2017, 199 ha in 2018, 84 ha in 2019, 1,150 ha in 2020, 1,046 ha in 2022, 541 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,911 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Mafa where it started
    2,734 ha reached on 22 Oct
    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)
22 Oct 38.7 °C 25 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
23 Oct 38.8 °C 25 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
24 Oct after 38.8 °C 20 % 17 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
25 Oct after 38.3 °C 24 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
26 Oct after 38.6 °C 19 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
27 Oct after 37.0 °C 29 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
28 Oct after 37.8 °C 17 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
29 Oct after 37.4 °C 18 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
30 Oct after 37.3 °C 20 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
31 Oct after 37.1 °C 20 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
1 Nov after 36.9 °C 18 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
2 Nov after 37.0 °C 20 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 15 Oct 2025
After · 30 Oct 2025

If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.

The smoke

CAMS · Copernicus

On 20 October 2025 the air beside the fire reached 58 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 45: 3.0 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak58 µg/m³
Days over the guideline7 days
PM10162 µg/m³
Optical depth0.49
20212223242526
Good Fair Moderate Poor Very poor Extremely poor

Particles from the Copernicus CAMS model at the centre of the perimeter; these are not measurements in each town. The pale bar is the worst hour, the solid one the daily average.

Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS)

Detections table · 40Every 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 22 October 2025 and 23 October 2025: 2 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 2,716 hectares (27.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Mafa (2,734 ha, 0.8 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 38.8 °C, humidity dropped to 25 % and gusts hit 21 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 34, class 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
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.