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Wase fire, 3 February 2023 Wase

Out · last detection 7 Feb 2023, 12:55 UTC

The fire started on 3 February 2023 in Wase, Nigeria, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,021 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 15th largest in Plateau since 2016 (of 35 with a page). Number 65 in Nigeria in 2023, of 161.

The power measured by the satellite is low (19.2 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
3,021ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
5days
3 Feb 2023 – 7 Feb 2023
Municipalities hit
1
local government areas
Started on
3 Feb
2023
Heat detections
95
in a single hotspot: 19 MW
Danger at start
58
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
491MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

7 Feb 2023
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 3 Feb7 Feb

How it evolved, day by day

4567

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
37km/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

3% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 95 ha in 2022.

What happened to each town

  1. Wase where it started
    3,040 ha reached on 4 Feb
    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)
3 Feb 38.8 °C 11 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
4 Feb 39.5 °C 12 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
5 Feb 40.1 °C 11 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
6 Feb 39.5 °C 11 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
7 Feb 38.0 °C 10 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
8 Feb after 38.3 °C 12 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
9 Feb after 37.6 °C 10 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
10 Feb after 38.9 °C 9 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
11 Feb after 38.1 °C 10 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 65
12 Feb after 37.6 °C 9 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 65
13 Feb after 36.5 °C 12 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 64
14 Feb after 35.4 °C 14 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 63
15 Feb after 34.1 °C 15 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
16 Feb after 33.2 °C 15 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
17 Feb after 33.2 °C 13 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 27 Jan 2023
After · 14 Feb 2023

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 · 95Every 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 Wase fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 3 February 2023 and 7 February 2023: 5 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 3,021 hectares (30.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Wase (3,040 ha, 0.6 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 40.1 °C, humidity dropped to 10 % and gusts hit 37 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 62, 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
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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.