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Bulen fire, 12 January 2018 Bulen, Mandura

Out · last detection 17 Jan 2018, 22:38 UTC

The fire started on 12 January 2018 in Bulen, Ethiopia, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 7,324 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 68th largest in Beneshangul Gumu since 2016 (of 699 with a page). Number 12 in Ethiopia in 2018, of 96.

Burnt area
7,324ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
6days
12 Jan 2018 – 17 Jan 2018
Municipalities hit
2
districts
Started on
12 Jan
2018
Heat detections
304
in a single hotspot: 100 MW
Danger at start
37
High · FWI index
Energy released
2.7GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

17 Jan 2018
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 12 Jan17 Jan

How it evolved, day by day

121314151617

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
29km/h · peak gust
11%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

60% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 3,434 ha in 2016, 2,325 ha in 2017. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 4,415 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Bulen where it started
    7,321 ha reached on 11 Jan
    2.4 %
  2. Mandura
    59 ha
    0.0 %

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)
12 Jan 34.3 °C 15 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
13 Jan 35.4 °C 14 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
14 Jan 34.9 °C 11 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
15 Jan 33.5 °C 13 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
16 Jan 34.0 °C 13 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
17 Jan 33.8 °C 15 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
18 Jan after 33.7 °C 14 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
19 Jan after 33.2 °C 16 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
20 Jan after 34.1 °C 16 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
21 Jan after 34.4 °C 17 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
22 Jan after 34.0 °C 18 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
23 Jan after 34.5 °C 19 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
24 Jan after 34.6 °C 18 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
25 Jan after 33.3 °C 26 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
26 Jan after 34.7 °C 21 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
27 Jan after 34.0 °C 24 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 5 Jan 2018
After · 24 Jan 2018

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 · 304Every 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 12 January 2018 and 17 January 2018: 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 7,324 hectares (73.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Bulen (7,321 ha, 2.4 %); Mandura (59 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 35.4 °C, humidity dropped to 11 % and gusts hit 29 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 45, 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.