Skip to content
worldfires
NG · Nigeria · →

Mariga fire, 2 November 2025 Mariga, Wasagu-Danko, Maru

Out · last detection 18 Nov 2025, 12:27 UTC

The fire started on 2 November 2025 in Mariga, Nigeria, and satellites saw it burning for 17 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 10,219 hectares from heat detections, spread across 3 municipalities.

It is the 27th largest in Niger since 2016 (of 271 with a page). Number 18 in Nigeria in 2025, of 294.

Burnt area
10,219ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
17days
2 Nov 2025 – 18 Nov 2025
Municipalities hit
3
local government areas
Started on
2 Nov
2025
Heat detections
212
in a single hotspot: 58 MW
Danger at start
22
High · FWI index
Energy released
1.3GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

18 Nov 2025
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 2 Nov18 Nov

How it evolved, day by day

567910131415161718

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

The weather it burned in

37°high
40km/h · peak gust
12%lowest humidity

It had gone 17 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

61% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 463 ha in 2018, 1,001 ha in 2021, 756 ha in 2022, 1,351 ha in 2023, 4,598 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 6,214 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Mariga where it started
    7,939 ha reached on 5 Nov
    1.3 %
  2. Wasagu-Danko
    1,513 ha reached on 15 Nov
    0.4 %
  3. Maru
    839 ha reached on 6 Nov
    0.1 %

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 Nov 34.8 °C 21 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
3 Nov 35.8 °C 18 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
4 Nov 35.2 °C 27 % 17 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
5 Nov 37.2 °C 19 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
6 Nov 34.9 °C 23 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
7 Nov 35.9 °C 23 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
8 Nov 35.7 °C 18 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
9 Nov 36.4 °C 15 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
10 Nov 36.2 °C 23 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
11 Nov 36.8 °C 19 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
12 Nov 36.4 °C 15 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
13 Nov 35.3 °C 20 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
14 Nov 35.4 °C 23 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
15 Nov 35.3 °C 22 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
16 Nov 34.2 °C 21 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
17 Nov 33.6 °C 22 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
18 Nov 34.8 °C 23 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
19 Nov after 35.8 °C 20 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
20 Nov after 36.6 °C 20 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
21 Nov after 36.6 °C 21 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
22 Nov after 35.5 °C 20 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
23 Nov after 35.8 °C 16 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
24 Nov after 36.0 °C 12 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
25 Nov after 36.3 °C 18 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
26 Nov after 36.9 °C 19 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
27 Nov after 37.5 °C 22 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
28 Nov after 37.5 °C 21 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
29 Nov after 37.6 °C 20 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
30 Nov after 36.6 °C 19 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
1 Dec after 36.6 °C 19 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
2 Dec after 34.6 °C 29 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
3 Dec after 36.1 °C 20 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
4 Dec after 35.1 °C 23 % 16 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
5 Dec after 36.4 °C 24 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 38

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 26 Oct 2025
After · 25 Nov 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 16 November 2025 the air beside the fire reached 91 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 69: 4.6 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak91 µg/m³
Days over the guideline22 days
PM10469 µg/m³
Optical depth0.80
31123456789101112131415161718192021
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 · 212Every 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 2 November 2025 and 18 November 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 10,219 hectares (102.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 3 municipalities: Mariga (7,939 ha, 1.3 %); Wasagu-Danko (1,513 ha, 0.4 %); Maru (839 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.2 °C, humidity dropped to 12 % and gusts hit 40 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 45, 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.