Akobo fire, 11 February 2025 Akobo
The fire started on 11 February 2025 in Akobo, Ethiopia, and satellites saw it burning for 23 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 10,058 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 51th largest in Gambela since 2016 (of 611 with a page). Number 8 in Ethiopia in 2025, of 127.
Compare with…
Suggestions: Akobo · 2022Akobo · 2024Akobo · 2017Akobo · 2017
- Burnt area
- 10,058ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 23days
- 11 Feb 2025 – 5 Mar 2025
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- districts
- Started on
- 11 Feb
- 2025
- Heat detections
- 418
- in a single hotspot: 178 MW
- Danger at start
- 52
- Extreme · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 580MW
- 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 more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
100% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,402 ha in 2016, 11,620 ha in 2017, 1,301 ha in 2018, 44 ha in 2019, 3,761 ha in 2021, 6,911 ha in 2022, 3,981 ha in 2023, 6,517 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 10,108 ha that had burned before.
- 6,125 ha Akobo fire, January 2022 15,630 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 5,339 ha Akobo fire, February 2024 9,322 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 4,481 ha Akobo fire, December 2017 11,622 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 3,472 ha Akobo fire, January 2017 6,014 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,273 ha Akobo fire, April 2023 2,818 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,178 ha Akobo fire, April 2021 8,858 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 996 ha Akobo fire, January 2016 2,561 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 798 ha Akobo fire, June 2021 2,184 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 started10,123 ha reached on 11 Feb4.7 %
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 were about 0.02 hectares of built-up land and about 150 residents (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
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 11 Feb | 39.6 °C | 17 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 12 Feb | 38.1 °C | 21 % | 27 km/h | 0.1 mm | Extreme 58 |
| 13 Feb | 39.3 °C | 20 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 14 Feb | 39.3 °C | 20 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 15 Feb | 38.1 °C | 26 % | 21 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 16 Feb | 39.1 °C | 20 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 17 Feb | 40.3 °C | 20 % | 28 km/h | 0.1 mm | Very high 45 |
| 18 Feb | 39.3 °C | 25 % | 20 km/h | 0.4 mm | Very high 45 |
| 19 Feb | 38.8 °C | 21 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 20 Feb | 40.1 °C | 14 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 21 Feb | 40.9 °C | 14 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 22 Feb | 40.3 °C | 12 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 23 Feb | 40.7 °C | 10 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 58 |
| 24 Feb | 40.3 °C | 16 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 58 |
| 25 Feb | 40.6 °C | 14 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 26 Feb | 40.0 °C | 18 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 56 |
| 27 Feb | 39.9 °C | 15 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 28 Feb | 40.3 °C | 18 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 1 Mar | 40.9 °C | 16 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 50 |
| 2 Mar | 40.3 °C | 15 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 65 |
| 3 Mar | 40.0 °C | 18 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 55 |
| 4 Mar | 38.1 °C | 24 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 5 Mar | 39.4 °C | 21 % | 19 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 6 Mar after | 40.1 °C | 20 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 7 Mar after | 39.6 °C | 8 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 66 |
| 8 Mar after | 38.8 °C | 10 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 64 |
| 9 Mar after | 38.6 °C | 8 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 62 |
| 10 Mar after | 38.8 °C | 9 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 60 |
| 11 Mar after | 38.7 °C | 12 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 12 Mar after | 39.1 °C | 11 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 59 |
| 13 Mar after | 38.8 °C | 22 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 14 Mar after | 40.7 °C | 16 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 15 Mar after | 41.0 °C | 8 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 56 |
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 · 418Every 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?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 11 February 2025 to 5 March 2025 (23 days). The perimeter dates it from 16 February 2025 to 26 February 2025.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 10,058 hectares (100.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Akobo (10,123 ha, 4.7 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 40.9 °C, humidity dropped to 10 % and gusts hit 38 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 65, class Extreme.
- 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 · 2 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
- Last day with fire: 26 February 2025 → 5 March 2025.
- Start date: 16 February 2025 → 11 February 2025.
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 16 February 2025 to 26 February 2025. 418 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.
- 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.