Skip to content
worldfires
NG · Nigeria · →

Monguno fire, 10 October 2017 Monguno, Kukawa, Marte

Out · last detection 20 Oct 2017, 12:55 UTC

The fire started on 10 October 2017 in Monguno, Nigeria, and satellites saw it burning for 10 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 14,869 hectares from heat detections, spread across 3 municipalities.

It is the 11th largest in Borno since 2016 (of 457 with a page). Number 5 in Nigeria in 2017, of 143.

Burnt area
14,869ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
10days
10 Oct 2017 – 19 Oct 2017
Municipalities hit
3
local government areas
Started on
10 Oct
2017
Heat detections
601
in a single hotspot: 73 MW
Danger at start
50
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
5.7GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

20 Oct 2017
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 10 Oct19 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

1011121314151617181920

Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.

The weather it burned in

41°high
42km/h · peak gust
11%lowest humidity

It had gone 17 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

What happened to each town

  1. Monguno where it started
    13,411 ha reached on 9 Oct
    5.8 %
  2. Kukawa
    1,041 ha reached on 9 Oct
    0.2 %
  3. Marte
    510 ha reached on 10 Oct
    0.2 %

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)
10 Oct 40.7 °C 11 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
11 Oct 39.4 °C 19 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
12 Oct 37.8 °C 15 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
13 Oct 37.7 °C 13 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
14 Oct 36.8 °C 16 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
15 Oct 37.2 °C 14 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
16 Oct 37.5 °C 16 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
17 Oct 37.6 °C 18 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
18 Oct 36.7 °C 17 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
19 Oct 37.3 °C 17 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
20 Oct after 37.7 °C 17 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
21 Oct after 38.8 °C 11 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
22 Oct after 39.5 °C 10 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
23 Oct after 39.1 °C 10 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
24 Oct after 38.5 °C 10 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
25 Oct after 38.9 °C 10 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
26 Oct after 38.5 °C 11 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
27 Oct after 36.7 °C 17 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
28 Oct after 37.4 °C 16 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
29 Oct after 37.2 °C 14 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 3 Oct 2017
After · 26 Oct 2017

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 · 601Every 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 Monguno fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 10 October 2017 and 19 October 2017: 10 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 14,869 hectares (148.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 3 municipalities: Monguno (13,411 ha, 5.8 %); Kukawa (1,041 ha, 0.2 %); Marte (510 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 40.7 °C, humidity dropped to 11 % and gusts hit 42 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

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.