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Marte fire, 13 October 2017 Marte, Monguno

Out · last detection 22 Oct 2017, 12:17 UTC

The fire started on 13 October 2017 in Marte, Nigeria, and satellites saw it burning for 9 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 13,232 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 14th largest in Borno since 2016 (of 457 with a page). Number 7 in Nigeria in 2017, of 143.

Burnt area
13,232ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
9days
13 Oct 2017 – 21 Oct 2017
Municipalities hit
2
local government areas
Started on
13 Oct
2017
Heat detections
471
in a single hotspot: 169 MW
Danger at start
43
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
8.8GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

22 Oct 2017
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 13 Oct21 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

13141516171819202122

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

The weather it burned in

38°high
40km/h · peak gust
18%lowest humidity

It had gone 9 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

20% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,596 ha in 2016.

What happened to each town

  1. Marte where it started
    13,094 ha reached on 13 Oct
    6.2 %
  2. Monguno
    223 ha reached on 14 Oct
    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)
13 Oct 36.7 °C 18 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
14 Oct 36.0 °C 19 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
15 Oct 36.5 °C 19 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
16 Oct 36.7 °C 20 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
17 Oct 37.0 °C 21 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
18 Oct 36.1 °C 20 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
19 Oct 36.7 °C 21 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
20 Oct 37.0 °C 20 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
21 Oct 37.9 °C 18 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
22 Oct after 38.3 °C 16 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
23 Oct after 38.5 °C 16 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
24 Oct after 38.0 °C 15 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
25 Oct after 37.9 °C 16 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
26 Oct after 37.7 °C 15 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
27 Oct after 36.1 °C 19 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
28 Oct after 36.7 °C 18 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
29 Oct after 36.7 °C 16 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
30 Oct after 36.3 °C 14 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
31 Oct after 37.3 °C 12 % 35 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 · 6 Oct 2017
After · 28 Oct 2017

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 · 471Every 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 Marte fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 13 October 2017 and 21 October 2017: 9 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 13,232 hectares (132.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Marte (13,094 ha, 6.2 %); Monguno (223 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.9 °C, humidity dropped to 18 % and gusts hit 40 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 46, 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.