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Bulen fire, February 2019 Bulen, Mandura, Dibat

Out · last detection 4 Mar 2019, 22:32 UTC

The fire started on 26 February 2019 in Bulen, Ethiopia, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 10,720 hectares from heat detections, spread across 3 municipalities.

It is the 28th largest in Beneshangul Gumu since 2016 (of 699 with a page). Number 19 in Ethiopia in 2019, of 220.

Burnt area
10,720ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
7days
26 Feb 2019 – 4 Mar 2019
Municipalities hit
3
districts
Started on
26 Feb
2019
Heat detections
308
in a single hotspot: 291 MW
Danger at start
44
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
4.5GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

4 Mar 2019
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 26 Feb4 Mar

How it evolved, day by day

2627281234

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

The weather it burned in

37°high
42km/h · peak gust
14%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

87% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 7,193 ha in 2016, 7,197 ha in 2017, 1,828 ha in 2018. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 9,376 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Bulen where it started
    8,973 ha reached on 26 Feb
    3.0 %
  2. Mandura
    1,053 ha reached on 2 Mar
    1.0 %
  3. Dibat
    767 ha reached on 2 Mar
    0.3 %

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)
26 Feb 36.3 °C 15 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
27 Feb 35.9 °C 17 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
28 Feb 35.2 °C 23 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
1 Mar 34.1 °C 17 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
2 Mar 33.4 °C 16 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
3 Mar 35.7 °C 14 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
4 Mar 36.8 °C 14 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
5 Mar after 34.6 °C 17 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
6 Mar after 34.8 °C 14 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
7 Mar after 35.6 °C 10 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
8 Mar after 34.9 °C 8 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
9 Mar after 35.5 °C 11 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
10 Mar after 34.3 °C 20 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
11 Mar after 36.3 °C 13 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
12 Mar after 37.8 °C 11 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
13 Mar after 35.5 °C 13 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
14 Mar after 36.6 °C 13 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 19 Feb 2019
After · 11 Mar 2019

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 · 308Every 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 26 February 2019 and 4 March 2019: 7 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 10,720 hectares (107.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 3 municipalities: Bulen (8,973 ha, 3.0 %); Mandura (1,053 ha, 1.0 %); Dibat (767 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.8 °C, humidity dropped to 14 % and gusts hit 42 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 54, class Extreme.
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.