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Wase fire, January 2025 Wase, Karim Lamido

Out · last detection 14 Jan 2025, 11:58 UTC

The fire started on 1 January 2025 in Wase, Nigeria, and satellites saw it burning for 14 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 11,611 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 3th largest in Plateau since 2016 (of 35 with a page). Number 15 in Nigeria in 2025, of 294.

Burnt area
11,611ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
14days
1 Jan 2025 – 14 Jan 2025
Municipalities hit
2
local government areas
Started on
1 Jan
2025
Heat detections
414
in a single hotspot: 0 MW
Danger at start
55
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
3.7GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

14 Jan 2025
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 1 Jan14 Jan

How it evolved, day by day

1234567891011121314

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
39km/h · peak gust
13%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

51% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 99 ha in 2016, 2,985 ha in 2022, 2,974 ha in 2023, 1 ha in 2024.

What happened to each town

  1. Wase where it started
    9,588 ha
    2.0 %
  2. Karim Lamido
    2,097 ha
    0.3 %

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)
1 Jan 37.9 °C 13 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
2 Jan 38.4 °C 14 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
3 Jan 38.3 °C 14 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
4 Jan 38.7 °C 13 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
5 Jan 36.7 °C 15 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
6 Jan 35.4 °C 15 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
7 Jan 35.9 °C 17 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
8 Jan 35.5 °C 16 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
9 Jan 33.7 °C 19 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
10 Jan 34.2 °C 18 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
11 Jan 33.7 °C 15 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
12 Jan 32.7 °C 15 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
13 Jan 35.4 °C 20 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
14 Jan 36.1 °C 17 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
15 Jan after 36.9 °C 17 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
16 Jan after 37.4 °C 14 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
17 Jan after 39.3 °C 14 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
18 Jan after 39.1 °C 14 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
19 Jan after 37.5 °C 33 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
20 Jan after 37.4 °C 31 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
21 Jan after 38.4 °C 20 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
22 Jan after 38.3 °C 15 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
23 Jan after 37.7 °C 14 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
24 Jan after 38.1 °C 13 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 25 Dec 2024
After · 21 Jan 2025

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 8 January 2025 the air beside the fire reached 123 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 103: 6.9 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak123 µg/m³
Days over the guideline19 days
PM10523 µg/m³
Optical depth0.58
30311234567891011121314151617
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)

Detections table · 0Every 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 1 January 2025 and 14 January 2025: 14 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 11,611 hectares (116.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Wase (9,588 ha, 2.0 %); Karim Lamido (2,097 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 38.7 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 39 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.