Akobo fire, 1 March 2025 Akobo, Wantawo
The fire started on 1 March 2025 in Akobo, Ethiopia, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,341 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 464th largest in Gambela since 2016 (of 611 with a page). Number 89 in Ethiopia in 2025, of 127.
- Burnt area
- 2,341ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 7days
- 1 Mar 2025 – 7 Mar 2025
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- districts
- Started on
- 1 Mar
- 2025
- Heat detections
- 77
- in a single hotspot: 64 MW
- Energy released
- 896MW
- 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.
This area had burned before
100% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 209 ha in 2016, 538 ha in 2017, 1,547 ha in 2018, 30 ha in 2021, 2,125 ha in 2022, 303 ha in 2023, 1,952 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,357 ha that had burned before.
- 1,666 ha Wantawo fire, March 2022 48,009 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,502 ha Jore fire, March 2024 11,941 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,400 ha Jore fire, December 2018 15,056 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 538 ha Wantawo fire, January 2017 7,235 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 460 ha Wantawo fire, February 2022 6,010 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 411 ha Wantawo fire, March 2024 2,257 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 283 ha Wantawo fire, February 2023 3,324 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 28 ha Akobo fire, April 2021 2,695 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
Akobo where it started1,850 ha reached on 1 Mar0.9 %
-
507 ha reached on 1 Mar0.6 %
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.
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 27 February 2025 the air beside the fire reached 131 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 76: 5.1 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 · 77Every 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 Akobo fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 1 March 2025 and 7 March 2025: 7 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 2,341 hectares (23.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Akobo (1,850 ha, 0.9 %); Wantawo (507 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
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.