Nganzai fire, 13 October 2023 Nganzai, Monguno
The fire started on 13 October 2023 in Nganzai, Nigeria, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,649 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 254th largest in Borno since 2016 (of 461 with a page). Number 86 in Nigeria in 2023, of 161.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 2,649ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 2days
- 13 Oct 2023 – 14 Oct 2023
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- local government areas
- Started on
- 13 Oct
- 2023
- Heat detections
- 58
- in a single hotspot: 79 MW
- Danger at start
- 17
- Moderate · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 1.8GW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
14 Oct 2023 · 1,812 MW · 58
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 11 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
55% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 106 ha in 2016, 202 ha in 2017, 1,065 ha in 2018, 536 ha in 2020. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,468 ha that had burned before.
- 1,065 ha Nganzai fire, October 2018 3,469 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 123 ha Nganzai fire, November 2020 2,237 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 106 ha Nganzai fire, November 2016 7,639 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
How big is it?
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Paris boundary: geoBoundaries · Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière (IGN-F) (Etalab Open License 2.0).
Madrid boundary: geoBoundaries · Open Data ESRI, IGN Central Registry of Cartography Area (CC BY 4.0).
Berlin boundary: geoBoundaries · Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy (dl-de/by-2-0).
This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.
What happened to each town
-
Nganzai where it started2,033 ha reached on 14 Oct1.0 %
-
631 ha reached on 14 Oct0.3 %
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.
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 Oct | 36.4 °C | 38 % | 19 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 17 |
| 14 Oct | 36.5 °C | 29 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 22 |
| 15 Oct after | 35.8 °C | 34 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 16 Oct after | 34.9 °C | 46 % | 25 km/h | 0.1 mm | Moderate 21 |
| 17 Oct after | 36.4 °C | 38 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 20 |
| 18 Oct after | 37.8 °C | 23 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 19 Oct after | 37.0 °C | 28 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 20 Oct after | 36.6 °C | 23 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 21 Oct after | 36.8 °C | 21 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 22 Oct after | 37.6 °C | 16 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 23 Oct after | 36.9 °C | 15 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 24 Oct after | 37.0 °C | 20 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
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 15 October 2023 the air beside the fire reached 64 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 48: 3.2 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 · 58Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 14,575 haNganzai17 October 2025 · 12 days · 7 km away
- 7,639 haNganzai28 November 2016 · 11 days · 7 km away
- 7,602 haMafa 14 October 2026 · 11 days · 12 km away
- 7,720 haMafa27 December 2025 · 32 days · 22 km away
- 12,460 haMafaFebruary 2017 · 11 days · 26 km away
- 10,469 haMafaJanuary 2023 · 16 days · 26 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Nganzai fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 13 October 2023 and 14 October 2023: 2 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 2,649 hectares (26.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Nganzai (2,033 ha, 1.0 %); Monguno (631 ha, 0.3 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 36.5 °C, humidity dropped to 29 % and gusts hit 22 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 22, class 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 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
No changes since 24 October 2026.
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
How we know this
- Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery.
- Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 58 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.
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.