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Ngala fire, 21 October 2017 Ngala

Out · last detection 31 Oct 2017, 12:49 UTC

The fire started on 21 October 2017 in Ngala, Nigeria, and satellites saw it burning for 10 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,738 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 39th largest in Borno since 2016 (of 457 with a page). Number 14 in Nigeria in 2017, of 143.

Burnt area
6,738ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
10days
21 Oct 2017 – 30 Oct 2017
Municipalities hit
1
local government areas
Started on
21 Oct
2017
Heat detections
206
in a single hotspot: 45 MW
Danger at start
39
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
1.2GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

31 Oct 2017
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 21 Oct30 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

22232425262728293031

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
37km/h · peak gust
14%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

24% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,617 ha in 2016.

What happened to each town

  1. Ngala where it started
    6,774 ha reached on 22 Oct
    3.4 %

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)
21 Oct 37.7 °C 19 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
22 Oct 37.9 °C 18 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
23 Oct 38.3 °C 17 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
24 Oct 37.9 °C 17 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
25 Oct 37.2 °C 19 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
26 Oct 37.2 °C 17 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
27 Oct 36.4 °C 19 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
28 Oct 36.4 °C 20 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
29 Oct 36.6 °C 18 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
30 Oct 36.5 °C 14 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
31 Oct after 37.3 °C 14 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
1 Nov after 37.0 °C 16 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
2 Nov after 37.3 °C 16 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
3 Nov after 36.0 °C 15 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
4 Nov after 36.3 °C 16 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
5 Nov after 35.0 °C 15 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
6 Nov after 34.8 °C 16 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
7 Nov after 35.3 °C 17 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
8 Nov after 36.1 °C 15 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
9 Nov after 35.2 °C 16 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 14 Oct 2017
After · 6 Nov 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 · 206Every 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 Ngala fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 21 October 2017 and 30 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 6,738 hectares (67.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Ngala (6,774 ha, 3.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 38.3 °C, humidity dropped to 14 % and gusts hit 37 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 50, 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
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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.