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Shiroro fire, 3 December 2017 Shiroro, Rafi

Out · last detection 6 Dec 2017, 13:14 UTC

The fire started on 3 December 2017 in Shiroro, Nigeria, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,668 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 111th largest in Niger since 2016 (of 271 with a page). Number 36 in Nigeria in 2017, of 143.

Burnt area
3,668ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
4days
3 Dec 2017 – 6 Dec 2017
Municipalities hit
2
local government areas
Started on
3 Dec
2017
Heat detections
101
in a single hotspot: 30 MW
Danger at start
48
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
813MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

6 Dec 2017
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 3 Dec6 Dec

How it evolved, day by day

3456

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

The weather it burned in

36°high
37km/h · peak gust
12%lowest humidity

It had gone 51 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

25% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 931 ha in 2016.

What happened to each town

  1. Shiroro where it started
    3,692 ha reached on 27 Nov
    0.8 %
  2. Rafi
    3 ha reached on 29 Nov
    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)
3 Dec 35.1 °C 14 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
4 Dec 36.0 °C 15 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
5 Dec 36.3 °C 12 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
6 Dec 34.7 °C 16 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
7 Dec after 33.4 °C 21 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
8 Dec after 32.3 °C 22 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
9 Dec after 31.7 °C 22 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
10 Dec after 31.9 °C 20 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
11 Dec after 32.3 °C 21 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
12 Dec after 32.3 °C 29 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
13 Dec after 35.4 °C 16 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
14 Dec after 35.2 °C 21 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
15 Dec after 33.8 °C 21 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
16 Dec after 35.0 °C 15 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 26 Nov 2017
After · 13 Dec 2017

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 · 101Every 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 Shiroro fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 3 December 2017 and 6 December 2017: 4 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 3,668 hectares (36.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Shiroro (3,692 ha, 0.8 %); Rafi (3 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.3 °C, humidity dropped to 12 % and gusts hit 37 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 54, 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.