Maru fire, 5 December 2024 Maru
The fire started on 5 December 2024 in Maru, Nigeria, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,212 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 166th largest in Zamfara since 2016 (of 208 with a page). Number 95 in Nigeria in 2024, of 118.
The power measured by the satellite is low (12.4 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
- 2,212ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 6days
- 5 Dec 2024 – 10 Dec 2024
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- local government areas
- Started on
- 5 Dec
- 2024
- Heat detections
- 45
- in a single hotspot: 12 MW
- Energy released
- 158MW
- 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
100% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,250 ha in 2016, 1,914 ha in 2017, 1 ha in 2018, 1,777 ha in 2019, 1,028 ha in 2020, 632 ha in 2021. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,208 ha that had burned before.
- 1,915 ha Maru fire, December 2017 14,143 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,145 ha Maru fire, December 2019 2,180 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,060 ha Maru fire, December 2016 43,149 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 632 ha Maru fire, November 2021 2,371 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
Maru where it started2,225 ha reached on 6 Dec0.3 %
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.
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.
The smoke
CAMS · CopernicusOn 8 December 2024 the air beside the fire reached 425 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 352: 23 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
Particles from the Copernicus CAMS model at the centre of the perimeter; these are not measurements in each town. The pale bar is the worst hour, the solid one the daily average.
Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS)
Detections table · 45Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 14,143 haMaru25 December 2017 · 18 days · 3 km away
- 43,149 haMaru12 December 2016 · 26 days · 5 km away
- 14,869 haMaru27 November 2016 · 20 days · 21 km away
- 15,860 haMaru25 December 2017 · 13 days · 24 km away
- 5,682 haMaru18 November 2021 · 9 days · 26 km away
- 8,176 haAnka28 November 2025 · 12 days · 34 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Maru fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 5 December 2024 and 10 December 2024: 6 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 2,212 hectares (22.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Maru (2,225 ha, 0.3 %).
- 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.