Amuru fire, 6 January 2019 Amuru, Debre Elias
The fire started on 6 January 2019 in Amuru, Ethiopia, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,549 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 153th largest in Oromia since 2016 (of 264 with a page). Number 150 in Ethiopia in 2019, of 220.
The power measured by the satellite is low (15.7 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.
- Burnt area
- 2,549ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 7days
- 6 Jan 2019 – 12 Jan 2019
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- districts
- Started on
- 6 Jan
- 2019
- Heat detections
- 64
- in a single hotspot: 16 MW
- Energy released
- 345MW
- 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
63% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 18 ha in 2016, 1,740 ha in 2017. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,604 ha that had burned before.
- 1,222 ha Amuru fire, December 2017 3,441 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 47 ha Debre Elias fire, November 2017 3,338 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 18 ha Debre Elias fire, November 2016 2,766 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
Amuru where it started2,355 ha reached on 6 Jan2.0 %
-
210 ha reached on 9 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.
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 · 64Every 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 Amuru fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 6 January 2019 and 12 January 2019: 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 2,549 hectares (25.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Amuru (2,355 ha, 2.0 %); Debre Elias (210 ha, 0.2 %).
- 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.