Ngala fire, March 2025 Marte, Ngala
The fire started on 13 March 2025 in Ngala, Nigeria, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 7,169 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 37th largest in Borno since 2016 (of 461 with a page). Number 43 in Nigeria in 2025, of 294.
- Burnt area
- 7,169ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 8days
- 13 Mar 2025 – 20 Mar 2025
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- local government areas
- Started on
- 13 Mar
- 2025
- Heat detections
- 221
- in a single hotspot: 133 MW
- Danger at start
- 73
- Very extreme · FWI index
- Energy released
- 2.4GW
- sum of detected power
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
69% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 734 ha in 2016, 1,279 ha in 2017, 585 ha in 2018, 880 ha in 2019, 1,798 ha in 2020, 2,727 ha in 2021, 4,851 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 4,980 ha that had burned before.
- 2,399 ha Marte fire, October 2023 3,056 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,049 ha Marte fire, February 2023 4,374 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,943 ha Ngala fire, October 2021 3,910 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,279 ha Ngala fire, November 2017 3,390 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 751 ha Ngala fire, December 2020 3,147 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 650 ha Marte fire, October 2021 3,796 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 195 ha Marte fire, October 2023 2,806 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 134 ha Marte fire, March 2021 6,070 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
6,287 ha reached on 14 Mar3.0 %
-
Ngala where it started924 ha reached on 13 Mar0.5 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 13 Mar | 40.8 °C | 8 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 73 |
| 14 Mar | 40.9 °C | 9 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 74 |
| 15 Mar | 40.2 °C | 10 % | 50 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 81 |
| 16 Mar | 40.3 °C | 7 % | 47 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 76 |
| 17 Mar | 39.9 °C | 5 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 74 |
| 18 Mar | 39.7 °C | 6 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 69 |
| 19 Mar | 40.4 °C | 7 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 63 |
| 20 Mar | 42.7 °C | 7 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 74 |
| 21 Mar after | 41.9 °C | 9 % | 54 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 93 |
| 22 Mar after | 39.4 °C | 11 % | 49 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 83 |
| 23 Mar after | 36.7 °C | 9 % | 45 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 78 |
| 24 Mar after | 38.2 °C | 9 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 69 |
| 25 Mar after | 39.3 °C | 9 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 65 |
| 26 Mar after | 41.8 °C | 9 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 64 |
| 27 Mar after | 41.5 °C | 7 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 67 |
| 28 Mar after | 40.9 °C | 6 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 59 |
| 29 Mar after | 41.4 °C | 7 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 64 |
| 30 Mar after | 42.7 °C | 8 % | 23 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.
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 · CopernicusOn 23 March 2025 the air beside the fire reached 60 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 43: 2.8 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
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.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 13,232 haMarte13 October 2017 · 9 days · 18 km away
- 8,241 haMarteFebruary 2021 · 3 days · 26 km away
- 6,738 haNgala21 October 2017 · 10 days · 33 km away
- 7,180 haMafa27 October 2025 · 6 days · 34 km away
- 16,241 haMafa2 November 2020 · 18 days · 37 km away
- 9,060 haNgala22 October 2021 · 9 days · 40 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Ngala fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 13 March 2025 and 20 March 2025: 8 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 7,169 hectares (71.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Marte (6,287 ha, 3.0 %); Ngala (924 ha, 0.5 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 42.7 °C, humidity dropped to 5 % and gusts hit 50 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 81, class Very 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
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.