Amuru fire, January 2021 Amuru, Debre Elias
The fire started on 4 January 2021 in Amuru, Ethiopia, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,830 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 66th largest in Oromia since 2016 (of 264 with a page). Number 88 in Ethiopia in 2021, of 255.
The power measured by the satellite is low (26.3 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.
Compare with…
Suggestions: Amuru · 2019Amuru · 2017Bure · 2016Dembecha · 2018
- Burnt area
- 3,830ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 4days
- 4 Jan 2021 – 7 Jan 2021
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- districts
- Started on
- 4 Jan
- 2021
- Heat detections
- 103
- in a single hotspot: 26 MW
- Danger at start
- 26
- High · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 146MW
- 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 35 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
84% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,185 ha in 2016, 1,254 ha in 2017, 427 ha in 2018, 2,461 ha in 2019, 840 ha in 2020. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 3,206 ha that had burned before.
- 2,461 ha Amuru fire, January 2019 3,930 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 468 ha Amuru fire, December 2017 3,441 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 298 ha Bure fire, December 2016 9,701 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 261 ha Dembecha fire, December 2018 10,555 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 120 ha Debre Elias fire, November 2017 3,338 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 67 ha Debre Elias fire, January 2016 2,318 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 34 ha Debre Elias fire, December 2016 2,322 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 5 ha Bure fire, November 2017 8,418 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
-
Amuru where it started3,226 ha reached on 4 Jan2.8 %
-
630 ha reached on 4 Jan0.5 %
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.
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4 Jan | 30.9 °C | 29 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 5 Jan | 31.2 °C | 26 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 6 Jan | 30.0 °C | 27 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 7 Jan | 30.7 °C | 27 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 8 Jan after | 30.5 °C | 29 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 9 Jan after | 27.8 °C | 28 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 10 Jan after | 27.9 °C | 28 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 11 Jan after | 28.1 °C | 27 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 12 Jan after | 28.2 °C | 26 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 13 Jan after | 28.4 °C | 27 % | 21 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 14 Jan after | 28.4 °C | 25 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 15 Jan after | 29.1 °C | 23 % | 21 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 16 Jan after | 30.6 °C | 23 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 17 Jan after | 29.4 °C | 24 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
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 · 103Every 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 4 January 2021 and 7 January 2021: 4 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 3,830 hectares (38.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Amuru (3,226 ha, 2.8 %); Debre Elias (630 ha, 0.5 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 31.2 °C, humidity dropped to 26 % and gusts hit 26 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 29, class 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
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. 103 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.