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Mashegu fire, January 2019 Mashegu

Out · last detection 28 Jan 2019, 12:36 UTC

The fire started on 22 January 2019 in Mashegu, Nigeria, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,569 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 72th largest in Niger since 2016 (of 271 with a page). Number 13 in Nigeria in 2019, of 106.

Burnt area
4,569ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
7days
22 Jan 2019 – 28 Jan 2019
Municipalities hit
1
local government areas
Started on
22 Jan
2019
Heat detections
134
in a single hotspot: 34 MW
Danger at start
45
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
875MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

28 Jan 2019
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 22 Jan28 Jan

How it evolved, day by day

22232425262728

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
24km/h · peak gust
10%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

1% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 61 ha in 2016.

What happened to each town

  1. Mashegu where it started
    4,597 ha reached on 20 Jan
    0.5 %

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)
22 Jan 36.1 °C 13 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
23 Jan 35.8 °C 11 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
24 Jan 35.2 °C 13 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
25 Jan 35.5 °C 15 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
26 Jan 36.8 °C 11 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
27 Jan 36.0 °C 10 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
28 Jan 34.9 °C 15 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
29 Jan after 35.2 °C 18 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
30 Jan after 36.1 °C 19 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
31 Jan after 36.8 °C 20 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
1 Feb after 37.6 °C 15 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
2 Feb after 36.4 °C 26 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
3 Feb after 37.2 °C 20 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
4 Feb after 37.3 °C 17 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
5 Feb after 36.5 °C 20 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
6 Feb after 35.7 °C 14 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
7 Feb after 35.3 °C 13 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 15 Jan 2019
After · 4 Feb 2019

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 · 134Every 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 Mashegu fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 22 January 2019 and 28 January 2019: 7 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 4,569 hectares (45.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Mashegu (4,597 ha, 0.5 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.8 °C, humidity dropped to 10 % and gusts hit 24 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 49, class Very high.
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.