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Bulen fire, 14 January 2016 Bulen

Out · last detection 19 Jan 2016, 11:15 UTC

The fire started on 14 January 2016 in Bulen, Ethiopia, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,299 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 161th largest in Beneshangul Gumu since 2016 (of 699 with a page). Number 81 in Ethiopia in 2016, of 309.

Burnt area
4,299ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
6days
14 Jan 2016 – 19 Jan 2016
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
14 Jan
2016
Heat detections
103
in a single hotspot: 119 MW
Danger at start
42
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
2.6GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

19 Jan 2016
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 14 Jan19 Jan

How it evolved, day by day

1416171819

Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.

The weather it burned in

35°high
37km/h · peak gust
15%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

What happened to each town

  1. Bulen where it started
    4,329 ha reached on 14 Jan
    1.4 %

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)
14 Jan 34.8 °C 19 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
15 Jan 33.4 °C 21 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
16 Jan 33.4 °C 22 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
17 Jan 35.0 °C 18 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
18 Jan 33.7 °C 16 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
19 Jan 33.6 °C 15 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
20 Jan after 34.8 °C 13 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
21 Jan after 35.4 °C 17 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
22 Jan after 34.8 °C 22 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
23 Jan after 35.2 °C 19 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
24 Jan after 33.7 °C 20 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
25 Jan after 34.6 °C 19 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
26 Jan after 34.1 °C 25 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
27 Jan after 33.0 °C 21 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
28 Jan after 32.1 °C 19 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
29 Jan after 31.9 °C 19 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46

Before and after, from space

Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.

Before · 7 Jan 2016
After · 26 Jan 2016

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.
⬇ Download CSV Times in UTC. Each detection is a 375 m pixel: a large fire yields hundreds per pass.
Date and timeSatelliteFRP (MW)LatLon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Ethiopia ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Bulen fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 14 January 2016 and 19 January 2016: 6 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 4,299 hectares (43.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Bulen (4,329 ha, 1.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 35.0 °C, humidity dropped to 15 % and gusts hit 37 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 46, class Very 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.

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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.