Rafi fire, 17 January 2026 Birnin Gwari, Rafi
The fire started on 17 January 2026 in Rafi, Nigeria, and satellites saw it burning for 16 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 16,719 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 12th largest in Niger since 2016 (of 271 with a page). Number 9 in Nigeria in 2026, of 266.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 16,719ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 16days
- 17 Jan 2026 – 1 Feb 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- local government areas
- Started on
- 17 Jan
- 2026
- Heat detections
- 465
- in a single hotspot: 50 MW
- Danger at start
- 42
- Very high · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 165MW
- 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 more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
97% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,276 ha in 2016, 1,037 ha in 2017, 3,147 ha in 2018, 2,454 ha in 2019, 2,574 ha in 2020, 7,856 ha in 2021, 15,580 ha in 2022, 5,016 ha in 2023, 10,209 ha in 2024, 7,629 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 16,240 ha that had burned before.
- 13,162 ha Birnin Gwari fire, January 2022 38,283 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 10,209 ha Mariga fire, January 2024 21,648 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 7,200 ha Birnin Gwari fire, January 2021 15,170 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 3,225 ha Birnin Gwari fire, January 2025 5,327 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,317 ha Rafi fire, December 2022 3,203 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,052 ha Birnin Gwari fire, January 2023 3,587 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,808 ha Birnin Gwari fire, January 2020 2,003 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 657 ha Rafi fire, December 2021 4,593 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
-
11,098 ha reached on 13 Jan1.8 %
-
Rafi where it started5,717 ha reached on 11 Jan1.5 %
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.
People and buildings inside the perimeter
GHSL 2025Inside the perimeter there were about 25 hectares of built-up land and about 4,800 residents (GHSL 2025, satellite-based estimate).
This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned. The GHSL 2025 epoch is a projection made from 2020 and earlier data.
Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 17 Jan | 35.8 °C | 22 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 18 Jan | 35.1 °C | 29 % | 21 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 19 Jan | 34.7 °C | 32 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 20 Jan | 35.6 °C | 15 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 21 Jan | 34.8 °C | 17 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 22 Jan | 32.9 °C | 19 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 23 Jan | 35.6 °C | 18 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 24 Jan | 35.8 °C | 22 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 25 Jan | 36.6 °C | 19 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 26 Jan | 36.1 °C | 11 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 27 Jan | 34.5 °C | 18 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 55 |
| 28 Jan | 35.2 °C | 19 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 29 Jan | 36.3 °C | 12 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 30 Jan | 36.1 °C | 17 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 50 |
| 31 Jan | 36.3 °C | 20 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 1 Feb | 36.1 °C | 25 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 2 Feb after | 38.0 °C | 19 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 3 Feb after | 35.9 °C | 24 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 4 Feb after | 38.2 °C | 19 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 5 Feb after | 39.1 °C | 17 % | 19 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 6 Feb after | 35.7 °C | 36 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 7 Feb after | 36.3 °C | 32 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 8 Feb after | 37.8 °C | 19 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 9 Feb after | 35.8 °C | 31 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 10 Feb after | 34.8 °C | 37 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 11 Feb after | 36.2 °C | 35 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
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 2026 the air beside the fire reached 182 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 134: 8.9 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 · 465Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Rafi fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 17 January 2026 and 1 February 2026: 16 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 16,719 hectares (167.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Birnin Gwari (11,098 ha, 1.8 %); Rafi (5,717 ha, 1.5 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 36.6 °C, humidity dropped to 11 % and gusts hit 37 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.
- Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 465 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.
- Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2025, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.
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.