Akobo fire, April 2024 Akobo, Wantawo
The fire started on 23 April 2024 in Akobo, Ethiopia, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,184 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 523th largest in Gambela since 2016 (of 611 with a page). Number 70 in Ethiopia in 2024, of 91.
Compare with…
Suggestions: Wantawo · 2019Akobo · 2016Wantawo · 2022Akobo · 2021
- Burnt area
- 2,184ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 5days
- 23 Apr 2024 – 27 Apr 2024
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- districts
- Started on
- 23 Apr
- 2024
- Heat detections
- 52
- in a single hotspot: 66 MW
- Average daily power
- 179MW
- 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.
This area had burned before
100% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,118 ha in 2016, 2,145 ha in 2017, 523 ha in 2018, 1,622 ha in 2019, 231 ha in 2020, 1,980 ha in 2021, 2,172 ha in 2022, 579 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,198 ha that had burned before.
- 1,602 ha Wantawo fire, January 2019 7,079 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,584 ha Akobo fire, December 2016 2,983 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,384 ha Wantawo fire, February 2022 48,009 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,088 ha Akobo fire, May 2021 3,994 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 892 ha Wantawo fire, April 2021 3,751 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 579 ha Wantawo fire, March 2023 3,159 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 523 ha Wantawo fire, March 2018 2,996 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 356 ha Ulang fire, December 2016 129,779 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
-
Akobo where it started1,636 ha reached on 23 Apr0.8 %
-
562 ha reached on 24 Apr0.6 %
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.
People and buildings inside the perimeter
GHSL 2025Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2025, satellite-based estimate).
This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned. The GHSL 2025 epoch is a projection made from 2020 and earlier data.
Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu
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 22 April 2024 the air beside the fire reached 31 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO 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 · 52Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 48,009 haWantawo23 February 2022 · 35 days · 13 km away
- 83,713 haUlang27 February 2022 · 37 days · 31 km away
- 58,283 haUlang27 December 2018 · 39 days · 32 km away
- 34,778 haLuakpiny/NasirJanuary 2017 · 29 days · 34 km away
- 129,779 haUlangDecember 2016 · 49 days · 35 km away
- 35,904 haUlangDecember 2017 · 24 days · 38 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Akobo fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 23 April 2024 to 27 April 2024 (5 days). The perimeter dates it from 23 April 2024 to 26 April 2024.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 2,184 hectares (21.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Akobo (1,636 ha, 0.8 %); Wantawo (562 ha, 0.6 %).
- 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 adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 23 April 2024 to 26 April 2024. 52 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
- We have not matched this page with any official record.
- Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2025, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.
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.