Rafi fire, 25 December 2023 Rafi, Bosso
The fire started on 25 December 2023 in Rafi, Nigeria, and satellites saw it burning for 27 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 15,783 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 15th largest in Niger since 2016 (of 271 with a page). Number 6 in Nigeria in 2023, of 164.
Compare with…
Suggestions: Rafi · 2020Rafi · 2022Rafi · 2021Rafi · 2022
- Burnt area
- 15,783ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 27days
- 25 Dec 2023 – 20 Jan 2024
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- local government areas
- Started on
- 25 Dec
- 2023
- Heat detections
- 610
- in a single hotspot: 158 MW
- Danger at start
- 50
- Very high · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 203MW
- detected power per day, on average
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.
The weather it burned in
It had gone 28 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
79% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,426 ha in 2018, 1,903 ha in 2020, 11,348 ha in 2021, 3,897 ha in 2022, 5,913 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 12,432 ha that had burned before.
- 7,031 ha Rafi fire, December 2020 23,153 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 5,913 ha Rafi fire, December 2022 8,385 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 3,380 ha Rafi fire, January 2021 12,255 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,795 ha Rafi fire, January 2022 3,707 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,900 ha Rafi fire, January 2020 2,624 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 20 ha Rafi fire, December 2021 4,315 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
How big is it?
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Paris boundary: geoBoundaries · Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière (IGN-F) (Etalab Open License 2.0).
Madrid boundary: geoBoundaries · Open Data ESRI, IGN Central Registry of Cartography Area (CC BY 4.0).
Berlin boundary: geoBoundaries · Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy (dl-de/by-2-0).
This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.
What happened to each town
-
Rafi where it started15,869 ha reached on 25 Dec4.1 %
-
5 ha0.0 %
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.
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 25 Dec | 35.0 °C | 17 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 50 |
| 26 Dec | 34.2 °C | 22 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 27 Dec | 33.7 °C | 21 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 28 Dec | 35.1 °C | 22 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 29 Dec | 36.0 °C | 20 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 30 Dec | 36.1 °C | 21 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 31 Dec | 36.1 °C | 25 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 1 Jan | 36.5 °C | 21 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 2 Jan | 36.7 °C | 23 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 3 Jan | 35.9 °C | 23 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 4 Jan | 37.0 °C | 20 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 5 Jan | 36.2 °C | 28 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 6 Jan | 37.3 °C | 22 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 7 Jan | 37.2 °C | 21 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 8 Jan | 36.7 °C | 20 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 9 Jan | 37.2 °C | 22 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 10 Jan | 37.1 °C | 13 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 11 Jan | 37.3 °C | 14 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 12 Jan | 36.2 °C | 15 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 13 Jan | 36.0 °C | 16 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 55 |
| 14 Jan | 35.8 °C | 14 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 55 |
| 15 Jan | 34.5 °C | 17 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 55 |
| 16 Jan | 35.2 °C | 18 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 17 Jan | 34.8 °C | 18 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 18 Jan | 35.4 °C | 17 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 19 Jan | 35.8 °C | 18 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 20 Jan | 36.8 °C | 16 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 21 Jan after | 36.1 °C | 17 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 22 Jan after | 37.7 °C | 15 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 55 |
| 23 Jan after | 36.4 °C | 19 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 50 |
| 24 Jan after | 35.4 °C | 19 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 55 |
| 25 Jan after | 33.8 °C | 15 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 59 |
| 26 Jan after | 33.5 °C | 20 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 27 Jan after | 32.7 °C | 19 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 28 Jan after | 33.7 °C | 20 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 29 Jan after | 35.3 °C | 20 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 50 |
| 30 Jan after | 36.6 °C | 19 % | 32 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.
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 · CopernicusOn 15 January 2024 the air beside the fire reached 259 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 110: 7.3 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
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 · 610Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 17,807 haRafi31 December 2024 · 21 days · 5 km away
- 12,255 haRafi4 January 2021 · 33 days · 5 km away
- 8,385 haRafi29 December 2022 · 21 days · 11 km away
- 23,153 haRafi29 December 2020 · 39 days · 14 km away
- 8,017 haShiroro22 December 2025 · 27 days · 24 km away
- 55,406 haShiroro21 December 2025 · 46 days · 26 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Rafi fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 25 December 2023 to 20 January 2024 (27 days). The perimeter dates it from 1 January 2024 to 13 January 2024.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 15,783 hectares (157.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Rafi (15,869 ha, 4.1 %); Bosso (5 ha, 0.0 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 37.3 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 38 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 55, 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 · Emergency number and official warnings ›
Satellite cross-check
History of this page Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
No changes since 24 October 2026.
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
How we know this
- Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery; 2 polygons grouped in this page.
- Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 1 January 2024 to 13 January 2024. 610 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.
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.