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Maru fire, 27 December 2019 Maru

Out · last detection 31 Dec 2019, 12:16 UTC

The fire started on 27 December 2019 in Maru, Nigeria, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,857 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 100th largest in Zamfara since 2016 (of 208 with a page). Number 45 in Nigeria in 2019, of 106.

Burnt area
2,857ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
5days
27 Dec 2019 – 31 Dec 2019
Municipalities hit
1
local government areas
Started on
27 Dec
2019
Heat detections
62
in a single hotspot: 41 MW
Danger at start
52
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
393MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

31 Dec 2019
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 27 Dec31 Dec

How it evolved, day by day

2728293031

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

The weather it burned in

31°high
41km/h · peak gust
14%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

60% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,300 ha in 2016, 207 ha in 2017, 517 ha in 2018. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,723 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Maru where it started
    2,872 ha reached on 27 Dec
    0.4 %

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 Dec 31.2 °C 18 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
28 Dec 31.0 °C 14 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
29 Dec 30.9 °C 15 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
30 Dec 30.1 °C 17 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
31 Dec 29.9 °C 17 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
1 Jan after 28.0 °C 19 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
2 Jan after 23.7 °C 20 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
3 Jan after 25.1 °C 20 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
4 Jan after 26.3 °C 20 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
5 Jan after 28.2 °C 22 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
6 Jan after 29.1 °C 24 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
7 Jan after 30.5 °C 21 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
8 Jan after 32.0 °C 20 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
9 Jan after 32.2 °C 17 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
10 Jan after 33.9 °C 20 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 20 Dec 2019
After · 7 Jan 2020

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 · 62Every 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 December 2019 and 31 December 2019: 5 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 2,857 hectares (28.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Maru (2,872 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 31.2 °C, humidity dropped to 14 % and gusts hit 41 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 52, 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
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.