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Maradun fire, December 2018 Maradun

Out · last detection 2 Jan 2019, 01:16 UTC

The fire started on 30 December 2018 in Maradun, Nigeria, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,368 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 75th largest in Zamfara since 2016 (of 208 with a page). Number 19 in Nigeria in 2018, of 63.

The power measured by the satellite is low (29.2 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Burnt area
3,368ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
4days
30 Dec 2018 – 2 Jan 2019
Municipalities hit
1
local government areas
Started on
30 Dec
2018
Heat detections
97
in a single hotspot: 29 MW
Danger at start
47
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
584MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

2 Jan 2019
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 30 Dec2 Jan

How it evolved, day by day

303112

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

The weather it burned in

30°high
41km/h · peak gust
16%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

What happened to each town

  1. Maradun where it started
    3,388 ha reached on 30 Dec
    1.3 %

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 Dec 29.6 °C 20 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
31 Dec 28.8 °C 17 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
1 Jan 28.7 °C 18 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
2 Jan 27.6 °C 16 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
3 Jan after 27.4 °C 20 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
4 Jan after 28.6 °C 17 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
5 Jan after 28.4 °C 17 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
6 Jan after 27.1 °C 14 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
7 Jan after 26.2 °C 19 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
8 Jan after 26.8 °C 18 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
9 Jan after 28.5 °C 16 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
10 Jan after 31.5 °C 16 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
11 Jan after 33.7 °C 16 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
12 Jan after 33.9 °C 13 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 23 Dec 2018
After · 9 Jan 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 · 97Every 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 Maradun fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 30 December 2018 and 2 January 2019: 4 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 3,368 hectares (33.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Maradun (3,388 ha, 1.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 29.6 °C, humidity dropped to 16 % and gusts hit 41 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.

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.