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Tarka fire, October 2025 Tarka

Out · last detection 23 Oct 2025, 12:15 UTC

The fire started on 22 October 2025 in Tarka, Niger, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,299 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 15th largest in Zinder since 2016 (of 103 with a page). Number 23 in Niger in 2025, of 161.

Burnt area
3,299ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
2days
22 Oct 2025 – 23 Oct 2025
Municipalities hit
1
communes
Started on
22 Oct
2025
Heat detections
50
in a single hotspot: 54 MW
Danger at start
76
Very extreme · FWI index
Energy released
690MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 22 Oct23 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

23

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

The weather it burned in

38°high
45km/h · peak gust
3%lowest humidity

It had gone 38 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

26% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 710 ha in 2023, 604 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 842 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Tarka where it started
    3,324 ha reached on 23 Oct
    0.4 %

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)
22 Oct 37.9 °C 3 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 76
23 Oct 37.3 °C 6 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 81
24 Oct after 38.0 °C 7 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 73
25 Oct after 37.4 °C 7 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 75
26 Oct after 37.2 °C 7 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 76
27 Oct after 36.4 °C 8 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 75
28 Oct after 36.7 °C 6 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 73
29 Oct after 36.2 °C 4 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 73
30 Oct after 35.9 °C 8 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 70
31 Oct after 35.6 °C 8 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 68
1 Nov after 35.0 °C 7 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 67
2 Nov after 34.2 °C 7 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 71

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 15 Oct 2025
After · 30 Oct 2025

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 20 October 2025 the air beside the fire reached 32 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 21: 1.4 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak32 µg/m³
Days over the guideline4 days
PM10184 µg/m³
Optical depth0.37
20212223242526
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 · 50Every 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 Niger ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Tarka fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 22 October 2025 and 23 October 2025: 2 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 3,299 hectares (33.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Tarka (3,324 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.9 °C, humidity dropped to 3 % and gusts hit 45 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 81, class Very extreme.
Where does this data come from?
From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Niger (OCHA COD-AB). 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.

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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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 OCHA COD-AB (IGNN) (Creative Commons Attribution for Intergovernmental Organisations (CC BY-IGO)). 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.