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Bulen fire, 9 March 2019 Bulen

Out · last detection 12 Mar 2019, 10:47 UTC

The fire started on 9 March 2019 in Bulen, Ethiopia, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,412 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 254th largest in Beneshangul Gumu since 2016 (of 699 with a page). Number 83 in Ethiopia in 2019, of 220.

Burnt area
3,412ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
3days
9 Mar 2019 – 11 Mar 2019
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
9 Mar
2019
Heat detections
90
in a single hotspot: 129 MW
Danger at start
47
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
1.8GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

12 Mar 2019
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 9 Mar11 Mar

How it evolved, day by day

9101112

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

The weather it burned in

36°high
30km/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

77% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,431 ha in 2016, 438 ha in 2017, 100 ha in 2018. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,620 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Bulen where it started
    3,431 ha reached on 9 Mar
    1.1 %

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.

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)
9 Mar 35.4 °C 14 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
10 Mar 34.4 °C 22 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
11 Mar 36.2 °C 17 % 28 km/h 0.3 mm Very high 41
12 Mar after 37.5 °C 13 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
13 Mar after 35.3 °C 17 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
14 Mar after 37.4 °C 10 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
15 Mar after 37.2 °C 11 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
16 Mar after 37.2 °C 14 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
17 Mar after 37.5 °C 18 % 24 km/h 0.4 mm Very high 45
18 Mar after 37.2 °C 17 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
19 Mar after 36.8 °C 16 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
20 Mar after 37.5 °C 17 % 37 km/h 0.2 mm Extreme 51
21 Mar after 37.4 °C 14 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 2 Mar 2019
After · 18 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 · 90Every 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 9 March 2019 and 11 March 2019: 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 3,412 hectares (34.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Bulen (3,431 ha, 1.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.2 °C, humidity dropped to 14 % and gusts hit 30 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 47, 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.