Assosa fire, January 2018 Assosa, Bambasi
The fire started on 12 January 2018 in Assosa, Ethiopia, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,495 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 468th largest in Beneshangul Gumu since 2016 (of 699 with a page). Number 63 in Ethiopia in 2018, of 96.
- Burnt area
- 2,495ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 3days
- 12 Jan 2018 – 14 Jan 2018
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- districts
- Started on
- 12 Jan
- 2018
- Heat detections
- 91
- in a single hotspot: 56 MW
- Energy released
- 539MW
- 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
97% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,750 ha in 2016, 2,307 ha in 2017. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,414 ha that had burned before.
- 2,297 ha Assosa fire, January 2017 11,491 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,016 ha Assosa fire, January 2016 3,516 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 170 ha Bambasi fire, February 2016 11,124 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 10 ha Bambasi fire, January 2017 6,151 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
Assosa where it started2,426 ha reached on 8 Jan0.8 %
-
84 ha reached on 13 Jan0.1 %
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 · 91Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 10,067 haAssosaJanuary 2020 · 14 days · 2 km away
- 11,491 haAssosa7 January 2017 · 7 days · 5 km away
- 11,124 haBambasiFebruary 2016 · 13 days · 7 km away
- 6,151 haBambasi24 January 2017 · 9 days · 9 km away
- 13,495 haBambasi17 January 2019 · 8 days · 12 km away
- 15,723 haBambasiJanuary 2016 · 14 days · 15 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Assosa fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 12 January 2018 and 14 January 2018: 3 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 2,495 hectares (25.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Assosa (2,426 ha, 0.8 %); Bambasi (84 ha, 0.1 %).
- 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.