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Numan fire, February 2017 Numan, Demsa

Out · last detection 11 Feb 2017, 00:14 UTC

The fire started on 4 February 2017 in Numan, Nigeria, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,831 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 11th largest in Adamawa since 2016 (of 37 with a page). Number 32 in Nigeria in 2017, of 143.

Burnt area
3,831ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
7days
4 Feb 2017 – 10 Feb 2017
Municipalities hit
2
local government areas
Started on
4 Feb
2017
Heat detections
137
in a single hotspot: 0 MW
Danger at start
49
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
878MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

11 Feb 2017
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 4 Feb10 Feb

How it evolved, day by day

4567891011

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

The weather it burned in

36°high
31km/h · peak gust
8%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

29% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,100 ha in 2016.

What happened to each town

  1. Numan where it started
    3,015 ha
    3.7 %
  2. Demsa
    839 ha
    0.5 %

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)
4 Feb 35.2 °C 13 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
5 Feb 35.5 °C 11 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
6 Feb 35.4 °C 10 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
7 Feb 35.6 °C 9 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
8 Feb 35.7 °C 8 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
9 Feb 36.4 °C 8 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
10 Feb 35.2 °C 9 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
11 Feb after 37.1 °C 9 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
12 Feb after 37.1 °C 10 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
13 Feb after 35.9 °C 8 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
14 Feb after 34.4 °C 7 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
15 Feb after 34.4 °C 10 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
16 Feb after 33.4 °C 12 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
17 Feb after 32.6 °C 12 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
18 Feb after 32.2 °C 12 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
19 Feb after 33.2 °C 11 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
20 Feb after 34.9 °C 10 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 28 Jan 2017
After · 17 Feb 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 · 0Every 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 Numan fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 4 February 2017 and 10 February 2017: 7 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 3,831 hectares (38.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Numan (3,015 ha, 3.7 %); Demsa (839 ha, 0.5 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.4 °C, humidity dropped to 8 % and gusts hit 31 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 52, 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.