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Bulen fire, January 2017 Bulen

Out · last detection 28 Jan 2017, 10:42 UTC

The fire started on 23 January 2017 in Bulen, Ethiopia, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,864 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 92th largest in Beneshangul Gumu since 2016 (of 699 with a page). Number 45 in Ethiopia in 2017, of 266.

Burnt area
5,864ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
6days
23 Jan 2017 – 28 Jan 2017
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
23 Jan
2017
Heat detections
149
in a single hotspot: 65 MW
Danger at start
40
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
1.3GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

28 Jan 2017
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 23 Jan28 Jan

How it evolved, day by day

232425262728

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

The weather it burned in

34°high
32km/h · peak gust
13%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

61% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 3,703 ha in 2016.

What happened to each town

  1. Bulen where it started
    5,904 ha reached on 22 Jan
    2.0 %

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)
23 Jan 34.0 °C 13 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
24 Jan 33.6 °C 16 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
25 Jan 33.8 °C 16 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
26 Jan 33.6 °C 19 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
27 Jan 33.5 °C 17 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
28 Jan 33.0 °C 18 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
29 Jan after 33.0 °C 23 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
30 Jan after 31.8 °C 22 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
31 Jan after 32.3 °C 18 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
1 Feb after 31.8 °C 18 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
2 Feb after 32.3 °C 26 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
3 Feb after 32.9 °C 24 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
4 Feb after 32.6 °C 22 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
5 Feb after 32.1 °C 14 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
6 Feb after 33.4 °C 14 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
7 Feb after 33.8 °C 21 % 22 km/h 0.1 mm Very high 39

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 16 Jan 2017
After · 4 Feb 2017

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 · 149Every 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 23 January 2017 and 28 January 2017: 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 5,864 hectares (58.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Bulen (5,904 ha, 2.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 34.0 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 32 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.