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Wase fire, January 2017 Wase

Out · last detection 26 Jan 2017, 13:00 UTC

The fire started on 16 January 2017 in Wase, Nigeria, and satellites saw it burning for 11 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,135 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 12th largest in Plateau since 2016 (of 35 with a page). Number 57 in Nigeria in 2017, of 143.

The power measured by the satellite is low (18.5 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
3,135ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
11days
16 Jan 2017 – 26 Jan 2017
Municipalities hit
1
local government areas
Started on
16 Jan
2017
Heat detections
103
in a single hotspot: 18 MW
Danger at start
54
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
672MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

26 Jan 2017
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 16 Jan26 Jan

How it evolved, day by day

16181920212223242526

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

The weather it burned in

40°high
42km/h · peak gust
8%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

5% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 153 ha in 2016.

What happened to each town

  1. Wase where it started
    3,154 ha reached on 12 Jan
    0.6 %

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)
16 Jan 36.9 °C 10 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
17 Jan 38.1 °C 10 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
18 Jan 38.3 °C 12 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
19 Jan 38.7 °C 13 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
20 Jan 37.8 °C 9 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
21 Jan 40.0 °C 8 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
22 Jan 38.3 °C 26 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
23 Jan 38.6 °C 20 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
24 Jan 38.0 °C 27 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
25 Jan 37.1 °C 23 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
26 Jan 38.6 °C 11 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
27 Jan after 37.3 °C 12 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
28 Jan after 37.3 °C 10 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
29 Jan after 37.6 °C 11 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
30 Jan after 37.2 °C 8 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
31 Jan after 36.9 °C 7 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
1 Feb after 36.8 °C 7 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
2 Feb after 37.1 °C 9 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
3 Feb after 36.3 °C 10 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
4 Feb after 36.8 °C 8 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
5 Feb after 36.7 °C 7 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 65

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 9 Jan 2017
After · 2 Feb 2017

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 · 103Every 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

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Wase fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 16 January 2017 and 26 January 2017: 11 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 3,135 hectares (31.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Wase (3,154 ha, 0.6 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 40.0 °C, humidity dropped to 8 % and gusts hit 42 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 58, 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.

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

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.

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.

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.