Skip to content
worldfires
NG · Nigeria · →

Rafi fire, 30 December 2022 Rafi

Out · last detection 2 Jan 2023, 12:30 UTC

The fire started on 30 December 2022 in Rafi, Nigeria, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,699 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 178th largest in Niger since 2016 (of 271 with a page). Number 63 in Nigeria in 2022, of 125.

Burnt area
2,699ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
4days
30 Dec 2022 – 2 Jan 2023
Municipalities hit
1
local government areas
Started on
30 Dec
2022
Heat detections
95
in a single hotspot: 40 MW
Danger at start
50
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
361MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

2 Jan 2023
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 30 Dec2 Jan

How it evolved, day by day

303112

Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.

The weather it burned in

33°high
40km/h · peak gust
16%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

65% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,160 ha in 2021. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,757 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Rafi where it started
    2,714 ha reached on 28 Dec
    0.7 %

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)
30 Dec 32.5 °C 16 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
31 Dec 32.0 °C 18 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
1 Jan 32.2 °C 21 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
2 Jan 32.8 °C 23 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
3 Jan after 32.8 °C 23 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
4 Jan after 33.4 °C 22 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
5 Jan after 33.7 °C 21 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
6 Jan after 32.7 °C 24 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
7 Jan after 35.0 °C 19 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
8 Jan after 35.6 °C 16 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
9 Jan after 34.3 °C 17 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
10 Jan after 34.1 °C 17 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
11 Jan after 33.0 °C 20 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
12 Jan after 34.1 °C 19 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 23 Dec 2022
After · 9 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.

Detections table · 95Every 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 Rafi fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 30 December 2022 and 2 January 2023: 4 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 2,699 hectares (27.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Rafi (2,714 ha, 0.7 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 32.8 °C, humidity dropped to 16 % 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
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.

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.