Ogoja fire, January 2026 Ogoja
The fire started on 23 January 2026 in Ogoja, Nigeria, and satellites saw it burning for 12 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,822 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 2th largest in Cross River since 2016 (of 37 with a page). Number 40 in Nigeria in 2026, of 258.
- Burnt area
- 5,822ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 12days
- 23 Jan 2026 – 3 Feb 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- local government areas
- Started on
- 23 Jan
- 2026
- Heat detections
- 108
- in a single hotspot: 33 MW
- Danger at start
- 27
- High · FWI index
- Energy released
- 651MW
- 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 2 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
98% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,709 ha in 2016, 2,096 ha in 2017, 2,779 ha in 2018, 813 ha in 2019, 1,198 ha in 2020, 2,152 ha in 2021, 4,446 ha in 2022, 1,490 ha in 2024, 1,221 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 5,709 ha that had burned before.
- 2,062 ha Ogoja fire, December 2022 2,489 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,886 ha Ogoja fire, January 2017 2,804 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,841 ha Ogoja fire, January 2016 2,177 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,242 ha Ogoja fire, January 2018 2,010 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,070 ha Ogoja fire, January 2021 2,283 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 881 ha Ogoja fire, January 2024 2,753 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 728 ha Ikom fire, December 2022 2,828 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 601 ha Ogoja fire, January 2021 3,337 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
Ogoja where it started5,860 ha reached on 23 Jan6.4 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 23 Jan | 36.1 °C | 34 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 24 Jan | 35.4 °C | 37 % | 21 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 25 Jan | 35.6 °C | 36 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 26 Jan | 36.3 °C | 31 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 27 Jan | 36.3 °C | 17 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 28 Jan | 36.0 °C | 18 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 29 Jan | 36.8 °C | 19 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 30 Jan | 34.9 °C | 38 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 31 Jan | 36.4 °C | 36 % | 34 km/h | 0.4 mm | High 35 |
| 1 Feb | 37.3 °C | 40 % | 32 km/h | 0.4 mm | High 33 |
| 2 Feb | 36.5 °C | 40 % | 27 km/h | 0.2 mm | High 31 |
| 3 Feb | 38.4 °C | 32 % | 31 km/h | 0.4 mm | High 32 |
| 4 Feb after | 34.4 °C | 40 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 5 Feb after | 37.5 °C | 35 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 6 Feb after | 36.9 °C | 39 % | 30 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 32 |
| 7 Feb after | 36.4 °C | 40 % | 27 km/h | 0.2 mm | High 31 |
| 8 Feb after | 37.9 °C | 36 % | 35 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 35 |
| 9 Feb after | 38.2 °C | 33 % | 34 km/h | 0.3 mm | High 35 |
| 10 Feb after | 37.9 °C | 32 % | 35 km/h | 0.6 mm | High 34 |
| 11 Feb after | 35.0 °C | 45 % | 31 km/h | 0.1 mm | High 29 |
| 12 Feb after | 35.7 °C | 40 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 13 Feb after | 37.1 °C | 34 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
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 28 January 2026 the air beside the fire reached 141 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 96: 6.4 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 · 108Every 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 23 January 2026 and 3 February 2026: 12 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 5,822 hectares (58.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Ogoja (5,860 ha, 6.4 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 38.4 °C, humidity dropped to 17 % and gusts hit 34 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 36, 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
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.