Marte fire, November 2020 Marte, Mafa
The fire started on 5 November 2020 in Marte, Nigeria, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,105 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 413th largest in Borno since 2016 (of 461 with a page). Number 132 in Nigeria in 2020, of 150.
The power measured by the satellite is low (7.1 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.
- Burnt area
- 2,105ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 2days
- 5 Nov 2020 – 6 Nov 2020
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- local government areas
- Started on
- 5 Nov
- 2020
- Heat detections
- 57
- in a single hotspot: 7 MW
- Energy released
- 111MW
- 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.
This area had burned before
65% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 668 ha in 2016, 368 ha in 2017, 303 ha in 2018, 243 ha in 2019. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,374 ha that had burned before.
What happened to each town
-
Marte where it started1,657 ha reached on 6 Nov0.8 %
-
459 ha reached on 6 Nov0.1 %
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.
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.
Detections table · 57Every 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 Marte fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 5 November 2020 and 6 November 2020: 2 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 2,105 hectares (21.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Marte (1,657 ha, 0.8 %); Mafa (459 ha, 0.1 %).
- 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.