Rafi fire, 5 January 2025 Rafi
The fire started on 5 January 2025 in Rafi, Nigeria, and satellites saw it burning for 9 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 17,807 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 11th largest in Niger since 2016 (of 271 with a page). Number 9 in Nigeria in 2025, of 294.
- Burnt area
- 17,807ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 9days
- 5 Jan 2025 – 13 Jan 2025
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- local government areas
- Started on
- 5 Jan
- 2025
- Heat detections
- 731
- in a single hotspot: 69 MW
- Danger at start
- 49
- Very high · FWI index
- Energy released
- 3.4GW
- 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.
The weather it burned in
It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
85% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,826 ha in 2018, 3,369 ha in 2020, 12,707 ha in 2021, 3,390 ha in 2022, 5,710 ha in 2023, 10,113 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 15,087 ha that had burned before.
- 9,853 ha Rafi fire, January 2024 15,783 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 7,243 ha Rafi fire, January 2021 23,153 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 5,710 ha Rafi fire, January 2023 8,385 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,966 ha Rafi fire, January 2021 12,255 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,759 ha Rafi fire, January 2022 3,707 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,016 ha Rafi fire, January 2020 2,624 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 874 ha Rafi fire, February 2020 2,486 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 805 ha Rafi fire, December 2021 4,315 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
Rafi where it started17,910 ha reached on 31 Dec4.6 %
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.
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 5 Jan | 35.4 °C | 17 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 6 Jan | 35.4 °C | 20 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 7 Jan | 34.5 °C | 21 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 8 Jan | 34.8 °C | 17 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 9 Jan | 33.4 °C | 17 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 10 Jan | 33.6 °C | 18 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 11 Jan | 33.8 °C | 20 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 12 Jan | 33.1 °C | 17 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 13 Jan | 35.0 °C | 18 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 14 Jan after | 34.6 °C | 21 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 15 Jan after | 34.3 °C | 23 % | 19 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 16 Jan after | 36.3 °C | 22 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 17 Jan after | 37.5 °C | 18 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 18 Jan after | 37.5 °C | 16 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 19 Jan after | 35.5 °C | 24 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 20 Jan after | 34.6 °C | 29 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 21 Jan after | 35.6 °C | 28 % | 15 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 22 Jan after | 36.4 °C | 18 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 23 Jan after | 36.9 °C | 15 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 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 11 January 2025 the air beside the fire reached 179 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 111: 7.4 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 · 731Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 15,783 haRafi1 January 2024 · 13 days · 5 km away
- 12,255 haRafi9 January 2021 · 21 days · 6 km away
- 8,385 haRafiJanuary 2023 · 10 days · 7 km away
- 23,153 haRafi4 January 2021 · 26 days · 12 km away
- 8,017 haShiroro29 December 2025 · 14 days · 25 km away
- 55,406 haShiroro27 December 2025 · 34 days · 29 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Rafi fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 5 January 2025 and 13 January 2025: 9 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 17,807 hectares (178.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Rafi (17,910 ha, 4.6 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 35.4 °C, humidity dropped to 17 % and gusts hit 42 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.
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.