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Shiroro fire, 30 November 2023 Shiroro

Out · last detection 17 Dec 2023, 13:26 UTC

The fire started on 30 November 2023 in Shiroro, Nigeria, and satellites saw it burning for 21 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,453 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 206th largest in Niger since 2016 (of 271 with a page). Number 109 in Nigeria in 2023, of 164.

The power measured by the satellite is low (28.3 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: Shiroro · 2025Shiroro · 2023Shiroro · 2021Rafi · 2020

Burnt area
2,453ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
21days
30 Nov 2023 – 20 Dec 2023
Municipalities hit
1
local government areas
Started on
30 Nov
2023
Heat detections
87
in a single hotspot: 28 MW
Danger at start
42
Very high · FWI index
Average daily power
48MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 30 Nov20 Dec
17 Dec 2023

How it evolved, day by day

1 Dec 2023 · 14 MW · 6 2 Dec 2023 · 21 MW · 2 5 Dec 2023 · 25 MW · 3 6 Dec 2023 · 34 MW · 5 7 Dec 2023 · 129 MW · 16 8 Dec 2023 · 57 MW · 11 9 Dec 2023 · 9 MW · 5 11 Dec 2023 · 10 MW · 2 12 Dec 2023 · 23 MW · 3 13 Dec 2023 · 218 MW · 28 14 Dec 2023 · 2 MW · 1 17 Dec 2023 · 41 MW · 5
1 Dec 5 Dec 7 Dec 9 Dec 12 Dec 13 Dec 14 Dec

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

The weather it burned in

35°high
48km/h · peak gust
17%lowest humidity

It had gone 10 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 1.5% 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. Shiroro where it started
    2,470 ha reached on 1 Dec
    0.5 %

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.

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)
6 Dec 35.0 °C 20 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
7 Dec 35.1 °C 17 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
8 Dec 35.1 °C 20 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
9 Dec 34.9 °C 20 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
10 Dec 34.7 °C 17 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
11 Dec 32.2 °C 23 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
12 Dec 31.4 °C 20 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
13 Dec 31.3 °C 22 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
14 Dec 32.8 °C 20 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
15 Dec 33.3 °C 25 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
16 Dec 34.1 °C 21 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
17 Dec 34.3 °C 20 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
18 Dec 35.6 °C 18 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
19 Dec 34.6 °C 23 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
20 Dec 35.3 °C 20 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
21 Dec after 35.6 °C 24 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
22 Dec after 34.7 °C 26 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
23 Dec after 34.3 °C 22 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 23 Nov 2023
After · 27 Dec 2023

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 13 December 2023 the air beside the fire reached 292 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 154: 10 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak292 µg/m³
Days over the guideline13 days
PM10937 µg/m³
Optical depth1.51
45678910111213141516
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 · 87Every 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?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 30 November 2023 to 20 December 2023 (21 days). The perimeter dates it from 6 December 2023 to 13 December 2023.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 2,453 hectares (24.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Shiroro (2,470 ha, 0.5 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 35.1 °C, humidity dropped to 17 % and gusts hit 48 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 49, 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 · 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.

RSS Changes to this page

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 adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 6 December 2023 to 13 December 2023. 87 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.