Mariga fire, 2 January 2025 Mariga
The fire started on 2 January 2025 in Mariga, Nigeria, and satellites saw it burning for 17 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 18,293 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 10th largest in Niger since 2016 (of 271 with a page). Number 8 in Nigeria in 2025, of 294.
- Burnt area
- 18,293ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 17days
- 2 Jan 2025 – 18 Jan 2025
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- local government areas
- Started on
- 2 Jan
- 2025
- Heat detections
- 1,057
- in a single hotspot: 162 MW
- Danger at start
- 46
- Very high · FWI index
- Energy released
- 6.8GW
- sum of detected power
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
68% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 676 ha in 2021, 6,012 ha in 2022, 11,217 ha in 2023, 603 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 12,388 ha that had burned before.
- 6,874 ha Mariga fire, December 2023 19,439 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,760 ha Mariga fire, January 2022 6,632 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 946 ha Mariga fire, December 2022 3,027 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 839 ha Mariga fire, January 2022 3,219 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 649 ha Mariga fire, December 2023 4,103 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 299 ha Mariga fire, January 2022 3,654 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 91 ha Kontagora fire, December 2022 5,684 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
Mariga where it started18,416 ha reached on 28 Dec2.9 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2 Jan | 36.6 °C | 21 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 3 Jan | 36.3 °C | 20 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 4 Jan | 35.8 °C | 19 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 5 Jan | 34.8 °C | 17 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 6 Jan | 35.4 °C | 19 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 7 Jan | 34.3 °C | 20 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 8 Jan | 34.6 °C | 17 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 50 |
| 9 Jan | 32.8 °C | 16 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 10 Jan | 32.8 °C | 18 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 11 Jan | 33.2 °C | 19 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 12 Jan | 32.6 °C | 17 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 50 |
| 13 Jan | 35.1 °C | 16 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 14 Jan | 34.7 °C | 19 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 15 Jan | 34.7 °C | 21 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 16 Jan | 36.3 °C | 22 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 17 Jan | 37.5 °C | 17 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 18 Jan | 37.5 °C | 16 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 19 Jan after | 35.7 °C | 22 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 20 Jan after | 35.1 °C | 26 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 21 Jan after | 36.4 °C | 23 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 22 Jan after | 36.3 °C | 19 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 23 Jan after | 36.8 °C | 15 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 24 Jan after | 36.5 °C | 17 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 25 Jan after | 36.1 °C | 17 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 26 Jan after | 35.5 °C | 17 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 50 |
| 27 Jan after | 36.0 °C | 17 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 28 Jan after | 35.7 °C | 17 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 55 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
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 · CopernicusOn 11 January 2025 the air beside the fire reached 234 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 145: 9.7 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
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 · 1,057Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Mariga fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 2 January 2025 and 18 January 2025: 17 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 18,293 hectares (182.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Mariga (18,416 ha, 2.9 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 37.5 °C, humidity dropped to 16 % and gusts hit 43 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 54, class 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
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.