Ogoja fire, 18 January 2021 Ogoja
The fire started on 18 January 2021 in Ogoja, Nigeria, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,629 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 21th largest in Cross River since 2016 (of 37 with a page). Number 122 in Nigeria in 2021, of 184.
Compare with…
Suggestions: Ogoja · 2016Ogoja · 2017Ogoja · 2019Ogoja · 2016
- Burnt area
- 2,629ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 7days
- 18 Jan 2021 – 24 Jan 2021
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- local government areas
- Started on
- 18 Jan
- 2021
- Heat detections
- 109
- in a single hotspot: 30 MW
- Danger at start
- 38
- Very high · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 103MW
- detected power per day, on average
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 34 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
97% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,497 ha in 2016, 659 ha in 2017, 141 ha in 2018, 1,223 ha in 2019, 852 ha in 2020. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,543 ha that had burned before.
- 2,205 ha Ogoja fire, January 2016 3,628 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 644 ha Ogoja fire, January 2017 2,804 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 295 ha Ogoja fire, February 2019 4,069 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 292 ha Ogoja fire, January 2016 2,177 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 141 ha Ogoja fire, January 2018 5,222 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
-
Ogoja where it started2,646 ha reached on 11 Jan2.9 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 18 Jan | 37.5 °C | 18 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 19 Jan | 37.5 °C | 13 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 20 Jan | 36.2 °C | 13 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 50 |
| 21 Jan | 35.2 °C | 12 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 22 Jan | 35.5 °C | 15 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 23 Jan | 35.6 °C | 12 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 24 Jan | 36.4 °C | 14 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 25 Jan after | 37.2 °C | 16 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 26 Jan after | 37.1 °C | 20 % | 19 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 27 Jan after | 37.4 °C | 27 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 28 Jan after | 36.6 °C | 24 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 29 Jan after | 38.2 °C | 10 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 30 Jan after | 37.1 °C | 11 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 31 Jan after | 37.4 °C | 14 % | 18 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 1 Feb after | 37.3 °C | 30 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 2 Feb after | 37.5 °C | 30 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 3 Feb after | 39.6 °C | 10 % | 33 km/h | 0.6 mm | Extreme 53 |
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.
Detections table · 109Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Ogoja fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 18 January 2021 and 24 January 2021: 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 2,629 hectares (26.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Ogoja (2,646 ha, 2.9 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 37.5 °C, humidity dropped to 12 % and gusts hit 40 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
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. 109 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.