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Rafi fire, January 2023 Rafi, Bosso

Out · last detection 12 Jan 2023, 12:43 UTC

The fire started on 2 January 2023 in Rafi, Nigeria, and satellites saw it burning for 10 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 8,385 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 33th largest in Niger since 2016 (of 271 with a page). Number 13 in Nigeria in 2023, of 161.

Burnt area
8,385ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
10days
2 Jan 2023 – 11 Jan 2023
Municipalities hit
2
local government areas
Started on
2 Jan
2023
Heat detections
254
in a single hotspot: 46 MW
Danger at start
48
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
1.2GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

12 Jan 2023
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 2 Jan11 Jan

How it evolved, day by day

234567891112

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
41km/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

84% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,571 ha in 2018, 2,135 ha in 2020, 7,166 ha in 2021, 2,540 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 7,075 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Rafi where it started
    8,318 ha reached on 29 Dec
    2.2 %
  2. Bosso
    114 ha reached on 4 Jan
    0.1 %

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)
2 Jan 33.0 °C 23 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
3 Jan 33.0 °C 23 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
4 Jan 33.6 °C 22 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
5 Jan 33.9 °C 21 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
6 Jan 32.9 °C 24 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
7 Jan 35.2 °C 19 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
8 Jan 35.8 °C 16 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
9 Jan 34.5 °C 17 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
10 Jan 34.3 °C 17 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
11 Jan 33.2 °C 20 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
12 Jan after 34.3 °C 20 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
13 Jan after 34.4 °C 18 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
14 Jan after 35.0 °C 17 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
15 Jan after 34.4 °C 17 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
16 Jan after 34.7 °C 15 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
17 Jan after 34.5 °C 16 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
18 Jan after 35.0 °C 18 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
19 Jan after 35.8 °C 19 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
20 Jan after 36.6 °C 18 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
21 Jan after 36.6 °C 20 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 26 Dec 2022
After · 18 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 · 254Every 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 2 January 2023 and 11 January 2023: 10 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 8,385 hectares (83.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Rafi (8,318 ha, 2.2 %); Bosso (114 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 35.8 °C, humidity dropped to 16 % and gusts hit 41 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 52, 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
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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.