Ababo fire, January 2025 Ababo, Baso Liben
The fire started on 3 January 2025 in Ababo, Ethiopia, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,680 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 75th largest in Oromia since 2016 (of 264 with a page). Number 36 in Ethiopia in 2025, of 127.
- Burnt area
- 3,680ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 3days
- 3 Jan 2025 – 5 Jan 2025
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- districts
- Started on
- 3 Jan
- 2025
- Heat detections
- 152
- in a single hotspot: 111 MW
- Danger at start
- 40
- Very high · FWI index
- Energy released
- 1.1GW
- sum of detected power
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
91% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 906 ha in 2016, 46 ha in 2017, 719 ha in 2019, 26 ha in 2020, 4,954 ha in 2021, 2,810 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 3,354 ha that had burned before.
- 2,859 ha Ababo fire, December 2021 10,379 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,935 ha Ababo fire, January 2021 4,086 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 744 ha Ababo fire, January 2023 2,692 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 50 ha Ababo fire, January 2021 2,076 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 46 ha Ababo fire, December 2017 2,006 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 41 ha Ababo fire, December 2016 2,308 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
Ababo where it started3,507 ha reached on 2 Jan3.4 %
-
198 ha reached on 3 Jan0.2 %
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 | 33.6 °C | 16 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 4 Jan | 34.7 °C | 16 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 5 Jan | 34.0 °C | 20 % | 19 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 6 Jan after | 34.5 °C | 15 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 7 Jan after | 34.5 °C | 18 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 8 Jan after | 33.8 °C | 20 % | 21 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 9 Jan after | 34.2 °C | 22 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 10 Jan after | 34.3 °C | 24 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 11 Jan after | 34.1 °C | 22 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 12 Jan after | 35.1 °C | 19 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 13 Jan after | 34.1 °C | 25 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 14 Jan after | 33.2 °C | 20 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 15 Jan after | 34.5 °C | 17 % | 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.
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 · CopernicusOn 4 January 2025 the air beside the fire reached 93 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 65: 4.3 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
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 · 152Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Ababo fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 3 January 2025 and 5 January 2025: 3 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 3,680 hectares (36.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Ababo (3,507 ha, 3.4 %); Baso Liben (198 ha, 0.2 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 34.7 °C, humidity dropped to 16 % and gusts hit 30 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 40, class Very high.
- Where does this data come from?
- From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Ethiopia (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.
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
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 ADM3 (Open Data Commons Open Database License 1.0). 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.