Rafi fire, November 2023 Rafi
The fire started on 21 November 2023 in Rafi, Nigeria, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,253 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 236th largest in Niger since 2016 (of 271 with a page). Number 130 in Nigeria in 2023, of 161.
- Burnt area
- 2,253ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 4days
- 21 Nov 2023 – 24 Nov 2023
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- local government areas
- Started on
- 21 Nov
- 2023
- Heat detections
- 72
- in a single hotspot: 45 MW
- Energy released
- 748MW
- 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
82% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 396 ha in 2017, 763 ha in 2018, 1,314 ha in 2019, 608 ha in 2020, 192 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,846 ha that had burned before.
What happened to each town
-
Rafi where it started2,269 ha reached on 21 Nov0.6 %
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 · 72Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 14,409 haShiroroNovember 2023 · 18 days · 9 km away
- 14,261 haShiroro15 December 2021 · 15 days · 13 km away
- 21,648 haMariga2 January 2024 · 19 days · 26 km away
- 55,406 haShiroro27 December 2025 · 34 days · 27 km away
- 16,719 haRafi17 January 2026 · 16 days · 34 km away
- 38,283 haBirnin Gwari9 January 2022 · 32 days · 36 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Rafi fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 21 November 2023 and 24 November 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 2,253 hectares (22.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Rafi (2,269 ha, 0.6 %).
- 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.