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Mashegu fire, 25 December 2025 Mashegu

Out · last detection 16 Jan 2026, 01:17 UTC

The fire started on 25 December 2025 in Mashegu, Nigeria, and satellites saw it burning for 23 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 7,999 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 38th largest in Niger since 2016 (of 271 with a page). Number 29 in Nigeria in 2025, of 294.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Mashegu · 2021Mashegu · 2021Mashegu · 2025Mashegu · 2025

Burnt area
7,999ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
23days
25 Dec 2025 – 16 Jan 2026
Municipalities hit
1
local government areas
Started on
25 Dec
2025
Heat detections
221
in a single hotspot: 65 MW
Danger at start
37
High · FWI index
Average daily power
58MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 25 Dec16 Jan
16 Jan 2026

How it evolved, day by day

25 Dec 2025 · 13 MW · 2 27 Dec 2025 · 5 MW · 1 28 Dec 2025 · 135 MW · 26 29 Dec 2025 · 187 MW · 16 30 Dec 2025 · 44 MW · 9 31 Dec 2025 · 16 MW · 5 1 Jan 2026 · 10 MW · 4 2 Jan 2026 · 94 MW · 23 3 Jan 2026 · 93 MW · 12 4 Jan 2026 · 133 MW · 17 5 Jan 2026 · 122 MW · 26 6 Jan 2026 · 230 MW · 33 7 Jan 2026 · 74 MW · 14 8 Jan 2026 · 12 MW · 4 9 Jan 2026 · 6 MW · 2 10 Jan 2026 · 21 MW · 4 11 Jan 2026 · 5 MW · 4 12 Jan 2026 · 21 MW · 6 13 Jan 2026 · 40 MW · 7 14 Jan 2026 · 10 MW · 3 15 Jan 2026 · 4 MW · 2 16 Jan 2026 · 1 MW · 1
25 Dec 30 Dec 3 Jan 6 Jan 7 Jan 11 Jan 15 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

38°high
32km/h · peak gust
17%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: 937 ha in 2016, 2,393 ha in 2021, 707 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 3,306 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 5.1% of the area of London (80 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

  1. Mashegu where it started
    8,050 ha reached on 25 Dec
    0.9 %

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 area0.27 ha
Residents≈ 30

Inside the perimeter there were about 0.27 hectares of built-up land and about 30 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 Rain Danger (FWI)
25 Dec 36.5 °C 33 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
26 Dec 36.7 °C 28 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
27 Dec 36.6 °C 26 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
28 Dec 36.9 °C 23 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
29 Dec 38.3 °C 23 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
30 Dec 35.7 °C 33 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
31 Dec 37.6 °C 27 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
1 Jan 38.1 °C 20 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
2 Jan 37.5 °C 23 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
3 Jan 36.8 °C 29 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
4 Jan 37.2 °C 23 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
5 Jan 37.2 °C 20 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
6 Jan 37.5 °C 17 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
7 Jan 35.5 °C 34 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
8 Jan 36.4 °C 30 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
9 Jan 36.1 °C 21 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
10 Jan 34.3 °C 21 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
11 Jan 33.9 °C 22 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
12 Jan 34.8 °C 22 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
13 Jan 36.0 °C 19 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
14 Jan 35.3 °C 18 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
15 Jan 34.8 °C 18 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
16 Jan 36.0 °C 23 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
17 Jan after 36.2 °C 22 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
18 Jan after 35.8 °C 29 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
19 Jan after 36.8 °C 22 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
20 Jan after 35.9 °C 12 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
21 Jan after 33.7 °C 14 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
22 Jan after 32.0 °C 15 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
23 Jan after 35.0 °C 12 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
24 Jan after 36.6 °C 15 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
25 Jan after 36.9 °C 13 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
26 Jan after 36.9 °C 10 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 18 Dec 2025
After · 23 Jan 2026

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 11 January 2026 the air beside the fire reached 165 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 126: 8.4 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak165 µg/m³
Days over the guideline21 days
PM10566 µg/m³
Optical depth1.13
242526272829303112345678910111213
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 · 221Every 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?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 25 December 2025 to 16 January 2026 (23 days). The perimeter dates it from 26 December 2025 to 10 January 2026.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 7,999 hectares (80.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Mashegu (8,050 ha, 0.9 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 38.3 °C, humidity dropped to 17 % and gusts hit 32 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 44, 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 · Emergency number and official warnings ›

Satellite cross-check

History of this page · 2 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
  1. Last day with fire: 10 January 2026 → 16 January 2026.
  2. Start date: 26 December 2025 → 25 December 2025.

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?

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 26 December 2025 to 10 January 2026. 221 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.