Omala fire, February 2020 Agatu, Omala
The fire started on 24 February 2020 in Omala, Nigeria, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,481 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 32th largest in Kogi since 2016 (of 48 with a page). Number 90 in Nigeria in 2020, of 150.
- Burnt area
- 2,481ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 6days
- 24 Feb 2020 – 29 Feb 2020
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- local government areas
- Started on
- 24 Feb
- 2020
- Heat detections
- 85
- in a single hotspot: 113 MW
- Energy released
- 952MW
- 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.
This area had burned before
71% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,794 ha in 2018, 73 ha in 2019. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,757 ha that had burned before.
- 1,643 ha Agatu fire, January 2018 2,310 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 151 ha Omala fire, January 2018 3,539 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 73 ha Omala fire, February 2019 4,801 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
2,418 ha reached on 25 Feb2.2 %
-
Omala where it started79 ha reached on 24 Feb0.0 %
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.
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 · 85Every 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 Omala fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 24 February 2020 and 29 February 2020: 6 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 2,481 hectares (24.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Agatu (2,418 ha, 2.2 %); Omala (79 ha, 0.0 %).
- 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.