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NE · Niger ·

Tillia fire, 1 December 2024 Tillia

Out · last measured on 1 Dec 2024

The fire started on 1 December 2024 in Tillia, Niger, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,375 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 9th largest in Tahoua since 2016 (of 59 with a page). Number 13 in Niger in 2024, of 76.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Tillia · 2025Tillia · 2025Tillia · 2024Tillia · 2023

We have the GWIS perimeter for this fire, but the VIIRS sensors did not capture it in enough detail: no day-by-day evolution, but the split by municipality is there.

Burnt area
3,375ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
1day
1 Dec 2024 – 1 Dec 2024
Municipalities hit
1
communes
Started on
1 Dec
2024
Danger at start
56
Extreme · FWI index

Where it burned

The weather it burned in

31°high
36km/h · peak gust
10%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months 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 2.1% of the area of London (34 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. Tillia where it started
    3,399 ha
    0.2 %

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 2025
Built-up area< 0.1 ha
Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (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)

Started with Very dry air: 73 % of the area in Niger 60 days without rain: 34 % of the area in Niger

Day High Min. humidity Peak gust Rain Danger (FWI)
1 Dec 30.6 °C 10 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
2 Dec after 31.1 °C 9 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
3 Dec after 31.4 °C 10 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
4 Dec after 31.9 °C 9 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
5 Dec after 31.3 °C 9 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
6 Dec after 31.3 °C 9 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
7 Dec after 28.8 °C 13 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
8 Dec after 28.8 °C 10 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
9 Dec after 31.1 °C 9 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
10 Dec after 34.3 °C 12 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
11 Dec after 35.6 °C 12 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 56.0, a minimum humidity of 10% and more than two months without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2017: 16.

FWI at the start 56.0
Minimum humidity 10 %
Days without rain 60+
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Tillia fire, January 2025
1,338 ha 1 day FWI 56.4 Min. humidity 8 % 15 km away, in 2025

First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.

See its page Compare with this fire

What happened to them

1 day
median duration
2,140 ha
median area
100 %
went past 1,000 ha
—
rain at the end (median; 0 of 16 had it)

It was 1.6 times larger than the median of its twins and lasted 1 day, against 1 day.

Only 2 of its 16 twins burned more. The weather on the first day does not explain everything: the wind in the following days, the fuel and the firefighting also count. In none of them did 1 mm fall in the ten days after the end: they all went out without rain.

This is a bank of analogues: it shows what usually happens, not what will happen. With fewer than 15 twins we give no figures. How we calculate it

How it ended

—first rain
—no rain in ten days
36km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 1 Dec, and not even 1 mm fell in the following ten days: it went out without rain. None of its 16 twins had rain when they ended.

Weather on this page: Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)

How a twin is chosen

  • Same area: fires that have already ended, less than 250 km from this one, since 2017.
  • Same start: we compare the FWI on the first day, the minimum humidity that day and the run of days without rain before it. The slider sets how much they may differ.
  • Only pages with final weather data (ERA5 reanalysis) calculated in the same way as this fire’s; agricultural and grass burns and pages with data under review are left out.
  • Fires burning at the same time as this one (a week before or after) are left out: they share the same spell of weather and do not count as a precedent.
  • They are sorted by similarity, and the outlines of the first five are drawn.

How we calculate it

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 24 Nov 2024
After · 8 Dec 2024

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 29 November 2024 the air beside the fire reached 72 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 46: 3.1 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak72 µg/m³
Days over the guideline6 days
PM10332 µg/m³
Optical depth0.54
29 Nov1 Dec3 Dec
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)

Other fires nearby

All fires in Niger

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Tillia fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 1 December 2024 and 1 December 2024: 1 day 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 3,375 hectares (33.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Tillia (3,399 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 30.6 °C, humidity dropped to 10 % and gusts hit 36 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 56, class 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.
How did the fires that started in similar weather in this area end?
Fires less than 250 km away that started since 2017 with a similar FWI, humidity and dry spell: 16. Their median duration was 1 day and their median area 2,140 ha; 100 % went past 1,000 ha. Only 2 of its 16 twins burned more. The weather on the first day does not explain everything: the wind in the following days, the fuel and the firefighting also count. In none of them did 1 mm fall in the ten days after the end: they all went out without rain.

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

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 With cross-checks and a citable version

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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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. No 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.

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 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.