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Rafi fire, 15 January 2026 Rafi

Out · last detection 25 Jan 2026, 12:54 UTC

The fire started on 15 January 2026 in Rafi, Nigeria, and satellites saw it burning for 11 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,526 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 196th largest in Niger since 2016 (of 271 with a page). Number 172 in Nigeria in 2026, of 262.

The power measured by the satellite is low (11.4 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Rafi · 2021Rafi · 2025Rafi · 2021Rafi · 2025

Burnt area
2,526ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
11days
15 Jan 2026 – 25 Jan 2026
Municipalities hit
1
local government areas
Started on
15 Jan
2026
Heat detections
57
in a single hotspot: 11 MW
Danger at start
43
Very high · FWI index
Average daily power
22MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 15 Jan25 Jan
25 Jan 2026

How it evolved, day by day

15 Jan 2026 · 7 MW · 2 16 Jan 2026 · 26 MW · 12 20 Jan 2026 · 3 MW · 2 21 Jan 2026 · 20 MW · 6 22 Jan 2026 · 30 MW · 11 23 Jan 2026 · 3 MW · 2 24 Jan 2026 · 55 MW · 8 25 Jan 2026 · 28 MW · 8
15 Jan 20 Jan 22 Jan 24 Jan

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
31km/h · peak gust
17%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

98% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 953 ha in 2020, 1,960 ha in 2021, 1,786 ha in 2023, 1,744 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,473 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 1.6% of the area of London (25 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each town

  1. Rafi where it started
    2,540 ha reached on 15 Jan
    0.7 %

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)
15 Jan 34.8 °C 26 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
16 Jan 36.2 °C 19 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
17 Jan 35.6 °C 27 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
18 Jan 35.2 °C 23 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
19 Jan 35.5 °C 34 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
20 Jan 36.2 °C 18 % 17 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
21 Jan 35.7 °C 17 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
22 Jan 33.8 °C 21 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
23 Jan 35.9 °C 23 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
24 Jan 35.8 °C 27 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
25 Jan 36.9 °C 22 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
26 Jan after 36.2 °C 15 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
27 Jan after 34.2 °C 19 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
28 Jan after 35.2 °C 21 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
29 Jan after 36.4 °C 21 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
30 Jan after 36.3 °C 15 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
31 Jan after 36.3 °C 27 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
1 Feb after 36.4 °C 25 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
2 Feb after 38.2 °C 22 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
3 Feb after 35.3 °C 28 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
4 Feb after 37.8 °C 21 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm High 38

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 8 Jan 2026
After · 1 Feb 2026

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 · Copernicus

On 15 January 2026 the air beside the fire reached 178 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 125: 8.3 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak178 µg/m³
Days over the guideline16 days
PM10713 µg/m³
Optical depth1.48
13141516171819202122232425262728
Good Fair Moderate Poor Very poor Extremely poor

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 · 57Every 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 15 January 2026 and 25 January 2026: 11 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 2,526 hectares (25.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Rafi (2,540 ha, 0.7 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.9 °C, humidity dropped to 17 % and gusts hit 31 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 43, class Very high.
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
What do you think is wrong?

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.

How we know this
  • Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery.
  • Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 57 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.

How we build fire pages: methodology ›

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.