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Maru fire, November 2017 Maru

Out · last detection 8 Dec 2017, 01:29 UTC

The fire started on 27 November 2017 in Maru, Nigeria, and satellites saw it burning for 12 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 9,573 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 9th largest in Zamfara since 2016 (of 208 with a page). Number 12 in Nigeria in 2017, of 143.

Burnt area
9,573ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
12days
27 Nov 2017 – 8 Dec 2017
Municipalities hit
1
local government areas
Started on
27 Nov
2017
Heat detections
350
in a single hotspot: 116 MW
Danger at start
57
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
2.1GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

8 Dec 2017
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 27 Nov8 Dec

How it evolved, day by day

2728293012345678

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

The weather it burned in

35°high
44km/h · peak gust
10%lowest humidity

It had gone 52 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

45% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 5,679 ha in 2016. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 4,338 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Maru where it started
    9,646 ha reached on 27 Nov
    1.3 %

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)
27 Nov 32.9 °C 14 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
28 Nov 33.5 °C 15 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
29 Nov 34.4 °C 14 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
30 Nov 33.9 °C 14 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
1 Dec 34.1 °C 14 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
2 Dec 34.0 °C 13 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
3 Dec 34.5 °C 12 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
4 Dec 35.4 °C 12 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
5 Dec 34.8 °C 10 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
6 Dec 33.3 °C 18 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
7 Dec 32.0 °C 21 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
8 Dec 29.7 °C 22 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
9 Dec after 29.6 °C 20 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
10 Dec after 29.8 °C 16 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
11 Dec after 30.3 °C 17 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
12 Dec after 25.7 °C 26 % 38 km/h 1.0 mm High 31
13 Dec after 33.3 °C 15 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
14 Dec after 33.7 °C 18 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
15 Dec after 34.0 °C 18 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
16 Dec after 32.8 °C 16 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
17 Dec after 32.8 °C 15 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
18 Dec after 35.0 °C 17 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
19 Dec after 35.5 °C 19 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
20 Dec after 34.6 °C 14 % 16 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
21 Dec after 34.7 °C 12 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
22 Dec after 33.6 °C 15 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
23 Dec after 30.3 °C 20 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
24 Dec after 28.4 °C 19 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 20 Nov 2017
After · 15 Dec 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 · 350Every 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 Maru fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 27 November 2017 and 8 December 2017: 12 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 9,573 hectares (95.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Maru (9,646 ha, 1.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 35.4 °C, humidity dropped to 10 % and gusts hit 44 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 58, 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.

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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.