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Monguno fire, October 2020 Monguno

Out · last detection 2 Nov 2020, 00:13 UTC

The fire started on 28 October 2020 in Monguno, Nigeria, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,081 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 95th largest in Borno since 2016 (of 457 with a page). Number 20 in Nigeria in 2020, of 150.

Burnt area
4,081ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
6days
28 Oct 2020 – 2 Nov 2020
Municipalities hit
1
local government areas
Started on
28 Oct
2020
Heat detections
115
in a single hotspot: 44 MW
Danger at start
57
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
947MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

2 Nov 2020
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 28 Oct2 Nov

How it evolved, day by day

2829303112

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

The weather it burned in

39°high
44km/h · peak gust
9%lowest humidity

It had gone 28 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

76% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 3,113 ha in 2017, 7 ha in 2018.

What happened to each town

  1. Monguno where it started
    4,107 ha reached on 28 Oct
    1.8 %

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)
28 Oct 38.2 °C 12 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
29 Oct 39.0 °C 9 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
30 Oct 38.7 °C 12 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
31 Oct 37.6 °C 13 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 65
1 Nov 36.6 °C 16 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
2 Nov 35.5 °C 21 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
3 Nov after 36.6 °C 18 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
4 Nov after 37.5 °C 15 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
5 Nov after 36.4 °C 14 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
6 Nov after 35.4 °C 13 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
7 Nov after 35.2 °C 12 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
8 Nov after 35.3 °C 16 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
9 Nov after 35.2 °C 14 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
10 Nov after 35.6 °C 13 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
11 Nov after 36.3 °C 12 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
12 Nov after 37.0 °C 12 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 21 Oct 2020
After · 9 Nov 2020

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 · 115Every 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 28 October 2020 and 2 November 2020: 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 4,081 hectares (40.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Monguno (4,107 ha, 1.8 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 39.0 °C, humidity dropped to 9 % and gusts hit 44 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 65, 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.