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Maru fire, February 2021 Maru

Out · last detection 13 Feb 2021, 12:29 UTC

The fire started on 6 February 2021 in Maru, Nigeria, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,301 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 79th largest in Zamfara since 2016 (of 208 with a page). Number 82 in Nigeria in 2021, of 184.

Burnt area
3,301ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
8days
6 Feb 2021 – 13 Feb 2021
Municipalities hit
1
local government areas
Started on
6 Feb
2021
Heat detections
118
in a single hotspot: 50 MW
Danger at start
54
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
556MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

13 Feb 2021
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 6 Feb13 Feb

How it evolved, day by day

678910111213

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
7%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

91% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,087 ha in 2016, 699 ha in 2017, 425 ha in 2018, 1,522 ha in 2019, 1,426 ha in 2020. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 3,003 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Maru where it started
    3,314 ha reached on 6 Feb
    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)
6 Feb 34.2 °C 16 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
7 Feb 35.5 °C 11 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
8 Feb 34.8 °C 8 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
9 Feb 36.4 °C 11 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
10 Feb 37.1 °C 12 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
11 Feb 36.9 °C 10 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
12 Feb 36.7 °C 7 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
13 Feb 36.4 °C 9 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
14 Feb after 36.7 °C 11 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
15 Feb after 37.3 °C 12 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
16 Feb after 36.5 °C 10 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 69
17 Feb after 32.6 °C 13 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 68
18 Feb after 28.7 °C 12 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
19 Feb after 28.7 °C 12 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
20 Feb after 31.4 °C 12 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
21 Feb after 32.1 °C 12 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
22 Feb after 33.5 °C 12 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
23 Feb after 34.2 °C 12 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 30 Jan 2021
After · 20 Feb 2021

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 · 118Every 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 6 February 2021 and 13 February 2021: 8 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 3,301 hectares (33.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Maru (3,314 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.1 °C, humidity dropped to 7 % and gusts hit 40 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 59, 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
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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.