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Rafi fire, 1 January 2024 Rafi, Bosso

Out · last detection 13 Jan 2024, 13:20 UTC

The fire started on 1 January 2024 in Rafi, Nigeria, and satellites saw it burning for 13 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 2 in Nigeria in 2024, of 118.

Burnt area
15,783ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
13days
1 Jan 2024 – 13 Jan 2024
Municipalities hit
2
local government areas
Started on
1 Jan
2024
Heat detections
610
in a single hotspot: 158 MW
Danger at start
42
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
4.6GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

13 Jan 2024
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 1 Jan13 Jan

How it evolved, day by day

12345678910111213

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

The weather it burned in

37°high
38km/h · peak gust
13%lowest humidity

It had gone 35 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.

What happened to each town

  1. Rafi where it started
    15,869 ha reached on 25 Dec
    4.1 %
  2. Bosso
    5 ha
    0.0 %

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.

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)
1 Jan 36.5 °C 21 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
2 Jan 36.7 °C 23 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
3 Jan 35.9 °C 23 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
4 Jan 37.0 °C 20 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
5 Jan 36.2 °C 28 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
6 Jan 37.3 °C 22 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
7 Jan 37.2 °C 21 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
8 Jan 36.7 °C 20 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
9 Jan 37.2 °C 22 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
10 Jan 37.1 °C 13 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
11 Jan 37.3 °C 14 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
12 Jan 36.2 °C 15 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
13 Jan 36.0 °C 16 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
14 Jan after 35.8 °C 14 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
15 Jan after 34.5 °C 17 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
16 Jan after 35.2 °C 18 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
17 Jan after 34.8 °C 18 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
18 Jan after 35.4 °C 17 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
19 Jan after 35.8 °C 18 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
20 Jan after 36.8 °C 16 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
21 Jan after 36.1 °C 17 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
22 Jan after 37.7 °C 15 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
23 Jan after 36.4 °C 19 % 27 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 · 25 Dec 2023
After · 20 Jan 2024

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 · 610Every 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 1 January 2024 and 13 January 2024: 13 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 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 53, 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.

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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.