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NE · Niger · –

Tondikiwindi fire, 13 February 2022 Tondikiwindi

Out · last detection 15 Feb 2022, 12:49 UTC

The fire started on 13 February 2022 in Tondikiwindi, Niger, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 1,408 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 69th largest in Tillabéri since 2016 (of 158 with a page). Number 20 in Niger in 2022, of 37.

The power measured by the satellite is low (12.4 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Burnt area
1,408ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
3days
13 Feb 2022 – 15 Feb 2022
Municipalities hit
1
communes
Started on
13 Feb
2022
Heat detections
34
in a single hotspot: 12 MW
Danger at start
61
Extreme · FWI index
Average daily power
48MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 13 Feb15 Feb
15 Feb 2022

How it evolved, day by day

13 Feb 2022 · 25 MW · 4 14 Feb 2022 · 91 MW · 18 15 Feb 2022 · 28 MW · 12
13 Feb 14 Feb 15 Feb

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

The weather it burned in

37°high
30km/h · peak gust
7%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 0.9% of the area of London (14 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. Tondikiwindi where it started
    1,415 ha reached on 13 Feb
    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 2020
Built-up area< 0.1 ha
Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2020, 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.

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)
13 Feb 35.4 °C 8 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
14 Feb 35.7 °C 7 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
15 Feb 36.7 °C 7 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
16 Feb after 37.6 °C 7 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
17 Feb after 38.7 °C 6 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
18 Feb after 38.4 °C 6 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 64
19 Feb after 36.4 °C 7 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 76
20 Feb after 34.6 °C 6 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 77
21 Feb after 33.4 °C 6 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 79
22 Feb after 35.0 °C 4 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 74
23 Feb after 37.1 °C 4 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 73
24 Feb after 38.0 °C 4 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 74
25 Feb after 36.9 °C 6 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 76

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 61.3, a minimum humidity of 8% and more than two months without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 27.

FWI at the start 61.3
Minimum humidity 8 %
Days without rain 60+
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Banibangou fire, January 2024
1,074 ha 2 days FWI 62.6 Min. humidity 8 % 83 km away, in 2024

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

What happened to them

2 days
median duration
1,274 ha
median area
100 %
went past 1,000 ha
—
rain at the end (median; 0 of 27 had it)

It burned an area similar to its twins (1,408 ha against a median of 1,274 ha) and lasted 3 days, against 2 days.

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
30km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 15 Feb, and not even 1 mm fell in the following ten days: it went out without rain. None of its 27 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 2016.
  • 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 · 6 Feb 2022
After · 22 Feb 2022

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 · 34Every 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 Tondikiwindi fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 13 February 2022 and 15 February 2022: 3 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 1,408 hectares (14.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Tondikiwindi (1,415 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.7 °C, humidity dropped to 7 % and gusts hit 30 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 61, 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 2016 with a similar FWI, humidity and dry spell: 27. Their median duration was 2 days and their median area 1,274 ha; 100 % went past 1,000 ha. 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.

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. 34 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 2020, 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.