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Bulen fire, April 2021 Bulen

Out · last detection 12 Apr 2021, 10:59 UTC

The fire started on 7 April 2021 in Bulen, Ethiopia, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,952 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 127th largest in Beneshangul Gumu since 2016 (of 699 with a page). Number 60 in Ethiopia in 2021, of 255.

Burnt area
4,952ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
6days
7 Apr 2021 – 12 Apr 2021
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
7 Apr
2021
Heat detections
139
in a single hotspot: 70 MW
Danger at start
46
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
997MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

12 Apr 2021
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 7 Apr12 Apr

How it evolved, day by day

789101112

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

The weather it burned in

38°high
40km/h · peak gust
8%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

98% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,705 ha in 2016, 4,027 ha in 2017, 2,395 ha in 2019, 3,558 ha in 2020. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 4,837 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Bulen where it started
    4,986 ha reached on 7 Apr
    1.6 %

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)
7 Apr 35.7 °C 17 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
8 Apr 36.1 °C 9 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
9 Apr 36.6 °C 8 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
10 Apr 36.1 °C 11 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
11 Apr 37.7 °C 8 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
12 Apr 32.7 °C 11 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
13 Apr after 35.7 °C 8 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
14 Apr after 35.2 °C 11 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
15 Apr after 35.9 °C 10 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
16 Apr after 35.9 °C 8 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
17 Apr after 36.0 °C 7 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
18 Apr after 36.2 °C 9 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
19 Apr after 36.4 °C 12 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
20 Apr after 36.9 °C 12 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
21 Apr after 35.1 °C 19 % 32 km/h 0.2 mm Very high 49
22 Apr after 32.4 °C 24 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 31 Mar 2021
After · 19 Apr 2021

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 · 139Every 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 7 April 2021 and 12 April 2021: 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 4,952 hectares (49.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Bulen (4,986 ha, 1.6 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.7 °C, humidity dropped to 8 % and gusts hit 40 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 60, 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.