Abobo fire, 18 January 2021 Abobo
The fire started on 18 January 2021 in Abobo, Ethiopia, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,158 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 283th largest in Gambela since 2016 (of 611 with a page). Number 116 in Ethiopia in 2021, of 255.
Compare with…
Suggestions: Abobo · 2016Abobo · 2018Abobo · 2020Abobo · 2017
- Burnt area
- 3,158ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 6days
- 18 Jan 2021 – 23 Jan 2021
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- districts
- Started on
- 18 Jan
- 2021
- Heat detections
- 91
- in a single hotspot: 51 MW
- Danger at start
- 37
- High · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 86MW
- detected power per day, on average
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 49 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
89% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,597 ha in 2016, 357 ha in 2017, 1,855 ha in 2018, 729 ha in 2020. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,800 ha that had burned before.
- 1,594 ha Abobo fire, December 2016 2,969 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 824 ha Abobo fire, January 2018 2,580 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 729 ha Abobo fire, February 2020 3,063 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 280 ha Abobo fire, December 2017 2,928 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 3 ha Abobo fire, February 2016 4,426 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
How big is it?
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Paris boundary: geoBoundaries · Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière (IGN-F) (Etalab Open License 2.0).
Madrid boundary: geoBoundaries · Open Data ESRI, IGN Central Registry of Cartography Area (CC BY 4.0).
Berlin boundary: geoBoundaries · Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy (dl-de/by-2-0).
This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.
What happened to each town
-
Abobo where it started3,179 ha reached on 12 Jan1.0 %
Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance runs from the point marking the centre of each area 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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 18 Jan | 38.0 °C | 17 % | 17 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 19 Jan | 38.6 °C | 18 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 20 Jan | 38.0 °C | 18 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 21 Jan | 37.6 °C | 18 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 22 Jan | 37.5 °C | 22 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 23 Jan | 36.6 °C | 23 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 24 Jan after | 36.0 °C | 27 % | 19 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 25 Jan after | 37.4 °C | 26 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 26 Jan after | 37.0 °C | 26 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 27 Jan after | 37.5 °C | 24 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 28 Jan after | 36.0 °C | 25 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 29 Jan after | 38.4 °C | 19 % | 19 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 30 Jan after | 36.6 °C | 23 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 31 Jan after | 37.7 °C | 20 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 1 Feb after | 37.6 °C | 17 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 2 Feb after | 38.0 °C | 19 % | 17 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
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.
Detections table · 91Every 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 Abobo fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 18 January 2021 and 23 January 2021: 6 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 3,158 hectares (31.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Abobo (3,179 ha, 1.0 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 38.6 °C, humidity dropped to 17 % and gusts hit 28 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
History of this page Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
No changes since 24 October 2026.
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
How we know this
- Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery.
- Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 91 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
- We have not matched this page with any official record.
- Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
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.