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NG · Nigeria · –

Uhunmwonde fire, January 2020 Uhunmwonde

Out · last detection 22 Feb 2020, 12:21 UTC

The fire started on 25 January 2020 in Uhunmwonde, Nigeria, and satellites saw it burning for 29 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 10,808 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 2th largest in Edo since 2016 (of 64 with a page). Number 6 in Nigeria in 2020, of 150.

Burnt area
10,808ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
29days
25 Jan 2020 – 22 Feb 2020
Municipalities hit
1
local government areas
Started on
25 Jan
2020
Heat detections
680
in a single hotspot: 130 MW
Danger at start
50
Extreme · FWI index
Average daily power
233MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 25 Jan22 Feb
22 Feb 2020

How it evolved, day by day

25 Jan 2020 · 1,016 MW · 23 26 Jan 2020 · 352 MW · 36 27 Jan 2020 · 440 MW · 38 28 Jan 2020 · 3 MW · 2 29 Jan 2020 · 180 MW · 4 30 Jan 2020 · 101 MW · 15 31 Jan 2020 · 176 MW · 17 1 Feb 2020 · 54 MW · 10 2 Feb 2020 · 77 MW · 18 3 Feb 2020 · 346 MW · 31 4 Feb 2020 · 7 MW · 2 5 Feb 2020 · 100 MW · 17 6 Feb 2020 · 75 MW · 19 7 Feb 2020 · 242 MW · 33 8 Feb 2020 · 770 MW · 59 9 Feb 2020 · 88 MW · 26 10 Feb 2020 · 25 MW · 6 11 Feb 2020 · 201 MW · 28 12 Feb 2020 · 178 MW · 47 13 Feb 2020 · 794 MW · 126 14 Feb 2020 · 612 MW · 91 15 Feb 2020 · 116 MW · 18 16 Feb 2020 · 5 MW · 3 17 Feb 2020 · 6 MW · 1 20 Feb 2020 · 73 MW · 4 22 Feb 2020 · 13 MW · 6
25 Jan 31 Jan 6 Feb 12 Feb 20 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

39°high
43km/h · peak gust
12%lowest humidity

It had gone 13 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 3.1 mm on 28 Feb.

This area had burned before

69% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 6,595 ha in 2016, 2,944 ha in 2017, 586 ha in 2018, 2,226 ha in 2019. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 7,476 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 6.8% of the area of London (108 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. Uhunmwonde where it started
    10,897 ha reached on 25 Jan
    5.2 %

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 area0.49 ha
Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there were about 0.49 hectares of 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: 27 % of the area in Nigeria

Day High Min. humidity Peak gust Rain Danger (FWI)
25 Jan 36.3 °C 13 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
26 Jan 36.4 °C 13 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
27 Jan 36.1 °C 18 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
28 Jan 36.7 °C 20 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
29 Jan 36.5 °C 19 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
30 Jan 36.3 °C 22 % 17 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
31 Jan 37.0 °C 18 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
1 Feb 37.0 °C 14 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
2 Feb 36.8 °C 12 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
3 Feb 35.7 °C 20 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
4 Feb 35.6 °C 31 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
5 Feb 34.6 °C 44 % 23 km/h 0.5 mm High 30
6 Feb 37.4 °C 22 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
7 Feb 36.4 °C 22 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
8 Feb 37.8 °C 16 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
9 Feb 37.0 °C 30 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
10 Feb 36.4 °C 27 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
11 Feb 37.0 °C 17 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
12 Feb 36.2 °C 13 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
13 Feb 36.7 °C 14 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
14 Feb 37.9 °C 18 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
15 Feb 36.5 °C 27 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
16 Feb 36.4 °C 30 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
17 Feb 37.6 °C 32 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
18 Feb 35.4 °C 45 % 39 km/h 0.3 mm High 32
19 Feb 37.5 °C 34 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
20 Feb 37.8 °C 24 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
21 Feb 38.5 °C 21 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
22 Feb 39.1 °C 28 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
23 Feb after 38.6 °C 28 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
24 Feb after 38.7 °C 23 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
25 Feb after 38.2 °C 21 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
26 Feb after 37.8 °C 27 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
27 Feb after 36.9 °C 38 % 37 km/h 0.2 mm High 38
28 Feb after 36.9 °C 38 % 32 km/h 3.1 mm Moderate 15

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 50.4, a minimum humidity of 13% and 13 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 15.

FWI at the start 50.4
Minimum humidity 13 %
Days without rain 13
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Uhunmwonde fire, January 2022
2,814 ha 8 days FWI 49.7 Min. humidity 13 % 32 km away, in 2022

First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: 1.1 mm on 17 Feb.

What happened to them

10 days
median duration
2,917 ha
median area
100 %
went past 1,000 ha
1.9 mm
rain at the end (median; 10 of 15 had it)

It was 3.7 times larger than the median of its twins and lasted 29 days, against 10 days.

None of its 15 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 5 of 15, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 1.9 mm.

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

3.1 mmfirst rain
28 Feb6 days after it ended
43km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 22 Feb, and on 28 Feb 3.1 mm fell. We do not know whether the rain or the firefighters put it out. Twins with rain when they ended: 10 of 15, with a median of 1.9 mm.

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 · 18 Jan 2020
After · 29 Feb 2020

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 · 680Every 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 Uhunmwonde fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 25 January 2020 to 22 February 2020 (29 days). The perimeter dates it from 31 January 2020 to 16 February 2020.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 10,808 hectares (108.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Uhunmwonde (10,897 ha, 5.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 39.1 °C, humidity dropped to 12 % and gusts hit 43 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 50, 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.
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: 15. Their median duration was 10 days and their median area 2,917 ha; 100 % went past 1,000 ha. None of its 15 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 5 of 15, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 1.9 mm.

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 · 2 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
  1. Last day with fire: 16 February 2020 → 22 February 2020.
  2. Start date: 31 January 2020 → 25 January 2020.

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.

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; 2 polygons grouped in this page.
  • Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 31 January 2020 to 16 February 2020. 680 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 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.