How long did the Maru fire last?

According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 23 December 2025 to 15 January 2026 (24 days). The perimeter dates it from 30 December 2025 to 11 January 2026.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 7,194 hectares (71.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 2 municipalities: Maru (6,894 ha, 0.9 %); Birnin Gwari (330 ha, 0.0 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 37.2 °C, humidity dropped to 15 % and gusts hit 49 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 57, 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.

NG · Nigeria · 2025-12-23 → 2026-01-15

Maru fire, 23 December 2025 Maru, Birnin Gwari

Out · last detection 16 Jan 2026, 01:16 UTC

The fire started on 23 December 2025 in Maru, Nigeria, and satellites saw it burning for 24 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 7,194 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 17th largest in Zamfara since 2016 (of 210 with a page). Number 47 in Nigeria in 2025, of 320.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Maru · 2025 Maru · 2020 Maru · 2017 Maru · 2025

Burnt area: 7,194ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 24days; 23 Dec 2025 – 15 Jan 2026
Municipalities hit: 2; local government areas
Started on: 23 Dec; 2025
Heat detections: 189; in a single hotspot: 76 MW
Danger at start: 40; Very high · FWI index
Average daily power: 69MW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 23 Dec15 Jan

Play back 16 Jan 2026

How it evolved, day by day

23 Dec 29 Dec 3 Jan 6 Jan 7 Jan 9 Jan 12 Jan 16 Jan

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

49km/h · peak gust

15%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

41% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 152 ha in 2017, 551 ha in 2019, 687 ha in 2020, 133 ha in 2021, 846 ha in 2022, 165 ha in 2023, 1,170 ha in 2024, 108 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,955 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

It burned the equivalent of 4.5% of the area of London (72 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each town

Maru where it started

6,894 ha reached on 23 Dec

0.9 %
Birnin Gwari

330 ha reached on 3 Jan

0.0 %

Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance runs from the point marking the centre of each area to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.

People and buildings inside the perimeter

GHSL 2025

Built-up area0.25 ha

Residents≈ 50

Inside the perimeter there were about 0.25 hectares of built-up land and about 50 residents (GHSL 2025, satellite-based estimate).

This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned. The GHSL 2025 epoch is a projection made from 2020 and earlier data.

Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu

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	Danger (FWI)
30 Dec	36.4 °C	25 %	23 km/h	Very high 40
31 Dec	36.9 °C	20 %	34 km/h	Very high 45
1 Jan	37.2 °C	20 %	33 km/h	Very high 45
2 Jan	37.2 °C	21 %	40 km/h	Very high 49
3 Jan	36.0 °C	19 %	34 km/h	Very high 47
4 Jan	36.2 °C	17 %	37 km/h	Very high 48
5 Jan	35.0 °C	17 %	42 km/h	Extreme 51
6 Jan	36.2 °C	20 %	35 km/h	Very high 49
7 Jan	36.0 °C	21 %	33 km/h	Very high 48
8 Jan	34.4 °C	27 %	25 km/h	Very high 42
9 Jan	34.0 °C	15 %	49 km/h	Extreme 57
10 Jan	32.1 °C	19 %	40 km/h	Extreme 51
11 Jan	33.4 °C	21 %	37 km/h	Very high 49
12 Jan	33.3 °C	20 %	33 km/h	Very high 46
13 Jan	34.0 °C	17 %	39 km/h	Extreme 51
14 Jan	32.7 °C	19 %	38 km/h	Extreme 51
15 Jan	34.0 °C	22 %	31 km/h	Very high 47
16 Jan after	35.7 °C	22 %	30 km/h	Very high 45
17 Jan after	35.8 °C	20 %	30 km/h	Very high 45
18 Jan after	35.7 °C	24 %	24 km/h	Very high 43
19 Jan after	35.1 °C	26 %	25 km/h	Very high 39
20 Jan after	34.5 °C	14 %	32 km/h	Very high 46
21 Jan after	33.9 °C	16 %	32 km/h	Very high 48

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 16 Dec 2025

After · 22 Jan 2026

Before After

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 · Copernicus

On 14 January 2026 the air beside the fire reached 241 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 180: 12 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak241 µg/m³

Days over the guideline18 days

PM101,382 µg/m³

Optical depth1.65

WHO 15

282930311234567891011121314

Good Fair Moderate Poor Very poor Extremely poor

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 · 189Every 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 time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Nigeria ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Maru fire last?: According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 23 December 2025 to 15 January 2026 (24 days). The perimeter dates it from 30 December 2025 to 11 January 2026.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 7,194 hectares (71.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 2 municipalities: Maru (6,894 ha, 0.9 %); Birnin Gwari (330 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 37.2 °C, humidity dropped to 15 % and gusts hit 49 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 57, 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 · Emergency number and official warnings ›

Satellite cross-check

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

History of this page Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.

No changes since 24 October 2026.

RSS Changes to this page

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?

Dates or duration Place or towns Burned area Name It was not a wildfire Same fire as another page Something else

What really happened?

Your connection to the fire (optional) Email (optional)

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.

How we know this

Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery; 2 polygons grouped in this page.
Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 30 December 2025 to 11 January 2026. 189 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
We have not matched this page with any official record.
Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2025, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.

How we build fire pages: methodology ›

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.

Where it burned