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Mariga fire, 18 December 2023 Sakaba, Mariga

Out · last detection 10 Jan 2024, 12:36 UTC

The fire started on 18 December 2023 in Mariga, Nigeria, and satellites saw it burning for 23 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 13,270 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 20th largest in Niger since 2016 (of 271 with a page). Number 6 in Nigeria in 2023, of 161.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Sakaba · 2022Sakaba · 2023Mariga · 2025Mariga · 2026

Burnt area
13,270ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
23days
18 Dec 2023 – 9 Jan 2024
Municipalities hit
2
local government areas
Started on
18 Dec
2023
Heat detections
785
in a single hotspot: 82 MW
Danger at start
41
Very high · FWI index
Average daily power
207MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 18 Dec9 Jan
10 Jan 2024

How it evolved, day by day

18 Dec 2023 · 78 MW · 10 19 Dec 2023 · 176 MW · 22 20 Dec 2023 · 229 MW · 36 21 Dec 2023 · 662 MW · 64 22 Dec 2023 · 68 MW · 15 23 Dec 2023 · 82 MW · 11 24 Dec 2023 · 302 MW · 15 25 Dec 2023 · 67 MW · 12 26 Dec 2023 · 100 MW · 31 27 Dec 2023 · 281 MW · 56 28 Dec 2023 · 348 MW · 87 29 Dec 2023 · 285 MW · 36 30 Dec 2023 · 146 MW · 30 31 Dec 2023 · 124 MW · 18 1 Jan 2024 · 573 MW · 72 2 Jan 2024 · 151 MW · 36 3 Jan 2024 · 148 MW · 20 4 Jan 2024 · 423 MW · 51 5 Jan 2024 · 67 MW · 28 6 Jan 2024 · 206 MW · 29 7 Jan 2024 · 54 MW · 19 8 Jan 2024 · 72 MW · 22 9 Jan 2024 · 105 MW · 21 10 Jan 2024 · 213 MW · 12
18 Dec 21 Dec 22 Dec 26 Dec 30 Dec 3 Jan 7 Jan

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
39km/h · peak gust
14%lowest humidity

It had gone 21 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

59% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,603 ha in 2016, 979 ha in 2017, 960 ha in 2018, 887 ha in 2020, 774 ha in 2021, 5,206 ha in 2022, 1,999 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 7,797 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 8.4% of the area of London (133 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each town

  1. Sakaba
    9,326 ha reached on 24 Dec
    6.7 %
  2. Mariga where it started
    4,025 ha reached on 18 Dec
    0.6 %

Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance runs from the point marking the centre of each area to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.

People and buildings inside the perimeter

GHSL 2025
Built-up area13 ha
Residents≈ 2,500

Inside the perimeter there were about 13 hectares of built-up land and about 2,500 residents (GHSL 2025, satellite-based estimate).

This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned. The GHSL 2025 epoch is a projection made from 2020 and earlier data.

Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu

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)
18 Dec 35.0 °C 17 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
19 Dec 34.5 °C 20 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
20 Dec 34.1 °C 20 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
21 Dec 35.1 °C 22 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
22 Dec 34.8 °C 21 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
23 Dec 34.6 °C 19 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
24 Dec 32.4 °C 19 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
25 Dec 32.7 °C 16 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
26 Dec 31.7 °C 20 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
27 Dec 31.8 °C 19 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
28 Dec 33.3 °C 19 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
29 Dec 34.0 °C 19 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
30 Dec 34.3 °C 20 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
31 Dec 34.1 °C 24 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
1 Jan 34.9 °C 20 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
2 Jan 35.4 °C 20 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
3 Jan 34.7 °C 20 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
4 Jan 35.5 °C 18 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
5 Jan 35.6 °C 21 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
6 Jan 36.5 °C 18 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
7 Jan 35.2 °C 20 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
8 Jan 35.7 °C 14 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
9 Jan 36.2 °C 15 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
10 Jan after 35.6 °C 14 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
11 Jan after 35.6 °C 13 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
12 Jan after 34.7 °C 12 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
13 Jan after 34.5 °C 13 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
14 Jan after 33.6 °C 12 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
15 Jan after 32.6 °C 15 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
16 Jan after 33.1 °C 17 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
17 Jan after 32.8 °C 16 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
18 Jan after 34.0 °C 16 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
19 Jan after 34.3 °C 15 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 11 Dec 2023
After · 16 Jan 2024

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 25 December 2023 the air beside the fire reached 270 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 160: 11 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak270 µg/m³
Days over the guideline28 days
PM10751 µg/m³
Optical depth1.76
16171819202122232425262728293031123456789101112
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 · 785Every 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 18 December 2023 and 9 January 2024: 23 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 13,270 hectares (132.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Sakaba (9,326 ha, 6.7 %); Mariga (4,025 ha, 0.6 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.5 °C, humidity dropped to 14 % and gusts hit 39 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 50, 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 · Emergency number and official warnings ›

Satellite cross-check

History of this page Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.

No changes since 24 October 2026.

RSS Changes to this page

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.

How we know this
  • Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery; 3 polygons grouped in this page.
  • Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 785 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
  • We have not matched this page with any official record.
  • Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
  • Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2025, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.

How we build fire pages: methodology ›

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.