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Okpokwu fire, December 2022 Okpokwu, Oturkpo, Ado

Out · last detection 31 Dec 2022, 13:07 UTC

The fire started on 13 December 2022 in Okpokwu, Nigeria, and satellites saw it burning for 19 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,519 hectares from heat detections, spread across 3 municipalities.

It is the 30th largest in Benue since 2016 (of 83 with a page). Number 35 in Nigeria in 2022, of 125.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Okpokwu · 2016Oturkpo · 2017Oturkpo · 2020Obi · 2026

Burnt area
3,519ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
19days
13 Dec 2022 – 31 Dec 2022
Municipalities hit
3
local government areas
Started on
13 Dec
2022
Heat detections
156
in a single hotspot: 138 MW
Danger at start
38
High · FWI index
Average daily power
71MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 13 Dec31 Dec
31 Dec 2022

How it evolved, day by day

13 Dec 2022 · 11 MW · 3 14 Dec 2022 · 25 MW · 5 15 Dec 2022 · 13 MW · 2 16 Dec 2022 · 7 MW · 4 19 Dec 2022 · 134 MW · 15 20 Dec 2022 · 195 MW · 31 21 Dec 2022 · 246 MW · 42 22 Dec 2022 · 146 MW · 18 23 Dec 2022 · 21 MW · 5 24 Dec 2022 · 15 MW · 3 26 Dec 2022 · 5 MW · 1 27 Dec 2022 · 109 MW · 15 28 Dec 2022 · 191 MW · 5 29 Dec 2022 · 8 MW · 1 30 Dec 2022 · 6 MW · 3 31 Dec 2022 · 10 MW · 3
13 Dec 16 Dec 21 Dec 24 Dec 28 Dec 31 Dec

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
19%lowest humidity

It had gone 54 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

86% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,943 ha in 2016, 412 ha in 2017, 1,241 ha in 2018, 689 ha in 2020, 987 ha in 2021. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 3,021 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 2.2% of the area of London (35 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each town

  1. Okpokwu where it started
    2,131 ha reached on 13 Dec
    2.4 %
  2. Oturkpo
    956 ha reached on 15 Dec
    0.7 %
  3. Ado
    455 ha reached on 16 Dec
    0.5 %

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.

People and buildings inside the perimeter

GHSL 2020
Built-up area4.3 ha
Residents≈ 800

Inside the perimeter there were about 4.3 hectares of built-up land and about 800 residents (GHSL 2020, satellite-based estimate).

This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned.

Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu

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)
19 Dec 35.9 °C 19 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
20 Dec 35.5 °C 21 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
21 Dec 34.6 °C 19 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
22 Dec 33.6 °C 21 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
23 Dec 34.5 °C 24 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
24 Dec 33.5 °C 21 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
25 Dec 33.9 °C 22 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
26 Dec 33.8 °C 21 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
27 Dec 34.9 °C 20 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
28 Dec 35.3 °C 19 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
29 Dec 35.0 °C 21 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
30 Dec 34.1 °C 19 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
31 Dec 33.9 °C 18 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
1 Jan after 34.4 °C 21 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
2 Jan after 33.8 °C 21 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
3 Jan after 33.9 °C 23 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 6 Dec 2022
After · 7 Jan 2023

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 · Copernicus

On 21 December 2022 the air beside the fire reached 128 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 76: 5.0 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak128 µg/m³
Days over the guideline11 days
PM10186 µg/m³
Optical depth0.76
1718192021222324252627
Good Fair Moderate Poor Very poor Extremely poor

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 · 156Every 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 Okpokwu fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 13 December 2022 to 31 December 2022 (19 days). The perimeter dates it from 19 December 2022 to 24 December 2022.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 3,519 hectares (35.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 3 municipalities: Okpokwu (2,131 ha, 2.4 %); Oturkpo (956 ha, 0.7 %); Ado (455 ha, 0.5 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 35.9 °C, humidity dropped to 19 % and gusts hit 37 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 43, 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 · Emergency number and official warnings ›

Satellite cross-check

History of this page · 2 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
  1. Last day with fire: 24 December 2022 → 31 December 2022.
  2. Start date: 19 December 2022 → 13 December 2022.

RSS Changes to this page

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.

How we know this
  • Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery.
  • Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 19 December 2022 to 24 December 2022. 156 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.
  • Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2020, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.

How we build fire pages: methodology ›

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.