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Yorro fire, January 2026 Yorro

Out · last detection 10 Jan 2026, 01:29 UTC

The fire started on 3 January 2026 in Yorro, Nigeria, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,770 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 75th largest in Taraba since 2016 (of 160 with a page). Number 146 in Nigeria in 2026, of 258.

The power measured by the satellite is low (17.0 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
2,770ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
8days
3 Jan 2026 – 10 Jan 2026
Municipalities hit
1
local government areas
Started on
3 Jan
2026
Heat detections
49
in a single hotspot: 17 MW
Danger at start
47
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
203MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

10 Jan 2026
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 3 Jan10 Jan

How it evolved, day by day

45678910

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

The weather it burned in

36°high
36km/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

89% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,595 ha in 2016, 973 ha in 2018, 1,706 ha in 2019, 1,087 ha in 2022, 469 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,461 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Yorro where it started
    2,789 ha reached on 4 Jan
    2.4 %

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 Jan 35.9 °C 18 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
4 Jan 36.4 °C 13 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
5 Jan 33.9 °C 16 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
6 Jan 35.7 °C 13 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
7 Jan 34.5 °C 19 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
8 Jan 34.2 °C 22 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
9 Jan 35.1 °C 13 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
10 Jan 32.9 °C 18 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
11 Jan after 32.5 °C 23 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
12 Jan after 34.1 °C 19 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
13 Jan after 34.1 °C 16 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
14 Jan after 32.7 °C 19 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
15 Jan after 34.0 °C 19 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
16 Jan after 35.4 °C 16 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
17 Jan after 35.6 °C 15 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
18 Jan after 36.1 °C 19 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
19 Jan after 35.2 °C 28 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
20 Jan after 34.9 °C 32 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 27 Dec 2025
After · 17 Jan 2026

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 11 January 2026 the air beside the fire reached 106 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 84: 5.6 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak106 µg/m³
Days over the guideline13 days
PM10429 µg/m³
Optical depth0.55
12345678910111213
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 · 49Every 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 Yorro fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 3 January 2026 and 10 January 2026: 8 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 2,770 hectares (27.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Yorro (2,789 ha, 2.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.4 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 36 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 50, class Very high.
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.