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Ogoja fire, 15 January 2021 Ogoja

Out · last detection 22 Jan 2021, 12:40 UTC

The fire started on 15 January 2021 in Ogoja, Nigeria, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,337 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 12th largest in Cross River since 2016 (of 37 with a page). Number 77 in Nigeria in 2021, of 184.

Burnt area
3,337ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
8days
15 Jan 2021 – 22 Jan 2021
Municipalities hit
1
local government areas
Started on
15 Jan
2021
Heat detections
114
in a single hotspot: 40 MW
Danger at start
38
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
1.1GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

22 Jan 2021
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 15 Jan22 Jan

How it evolved, day by day

1516171819202122

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
37km/h · peak gust
14%lowest humidity

It had gone 31 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

56% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,384 ha in 2016, 338 ha in 2017, 722 ha in 2018, 525 ha in 2020. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,880 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Ogoja where it started
    3,359 ha reached on 13 Jan
    3.6 %

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)
15 Jan 35.9 °C 23 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
16 Jan 35.4 °C 27 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
17 Jan 35.9 °C 26 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
18 Jan 36.4 °C 19 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
19 Jan 36.4 °C 14 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
20 Jan 35.0 °C 15 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
21 Jan 34.2 °C 14 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
22 Jan 34.8 °C 16 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
23 Jan after 34.8 °C 14 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
24 Jan after 35.7 °C 14 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
25 Jan after 36.5 °C 17 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
26 Jan after 36.4 °C 15 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
27 Jan after 36.7 °C 27 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
28 Jan after 35.9 °C 22 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
29 Jan after 37.2 °C 11 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
30 Jan after 36.2 °C 12 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
31 Jan after 36.7 °C 13 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
1 Feb after 36.5 °C 30 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 8 Jan 2021
After · 29 Jan 2021

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 · 114Every 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 Ogoja fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 15 January 2021 and 22 January 2021: 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 3,337 hectares (33.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Ogoja (3,359 ha, 3.6 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.4 °C, humidity dropped to 14 % and gusts hit 37 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 46, class Very 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

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.