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Mariga fire, 10 December 2022 Mariga

Out · last detection 15 Dec 2022, 13:08 UTC

The fire started on 10 December 2022 in Mariga, Nigeria, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,770 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 171th largest in Niger since 2016 (of 271 with a page). Number 60 in Nigeria in 2022, of 125.

Burnt area
2,770ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
6days
10 Dec 2022 – 15 Dec 2022
Municipalities hit
1
local government areas
Started on
10 Dec
2022
Heat detections
90
in a single hotspot: 228 MW
Danger at start
47
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
1.0GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

15 Dec 2022
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 10 Dec15 Dec

How it evolved, day by day

101112131415

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

The weather it burned in

36°high
34km/h · peak gust
13%lowest humidity

It had gone 56 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

27% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 363 ha in 2016, 384 ha in 2021.

What happened to each town

  1. Mariga where it started
    2,790 ha reached on 10 Dec
    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)
10 Dec 34.9 °C 13 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
11 Dec 34.9 °C 16 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
12 Dec 34.8 °C 18 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
13 Dec 34.7 °C 19 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
14 Dec 35.0 °C 16 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
15 Dec 35.8 °C 17 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
16 Dec after 35.3 °C 17 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
17 Dec after 33.5 °C 20 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
18 Dec after 30.0 °C 22 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
19 Dec after 33.7 °C 15 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
20 Dec after 34.0 °C 16 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
21 Dec after 32.3 °C 15 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
22 Dec after 29.8 °C 20 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
23 Dec after 30.0 °C 19 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
24 Dec after 29.2 °C 20 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
25 Dec after 30.5 °C 19 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 3 Dec 2022
After · 22 Dec 2022

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 · 90Every 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 Mariga fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 10 December 2022 and 15 December 2022: 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 2,770 hectares (27.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Mariga (2,790 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 35.8 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 34 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
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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.