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Bulen fire, 21 January 2022 Bulen

Out · last detection 26 Jan 2022, 23:16 UTC

The fire started on 21 January 2022 in Bulen, Ethiopia, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,476 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 102th largest in Beneshangul Gumu since 2016 (of 699 with a page). Number 15 in Ethiopia in 2022, of 135.

Burnt area
5,476ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
6days
21 Jan 2022 – 26 Jan 2022
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
21 Jan
2022
Heat detections
208
in a single hotspot: 38 MW
Danger at start
38
High · FWI index
Energy released
1.0GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

26 Jan 2022
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 21 Jan26 Jan

How it evolved, day by day

2123242526

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
34km/h · peak gust
15%lowest humidity

It had gone 21 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

100% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 3,221 ha in 2016, 4,474 ha in 2017, 3,827 ha in 2019, 4,694 ha in 2020, 1,039 ha in 2021. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 5,487 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Bulen where it started
    5,516 ha reached on 21 Jan
    1.8 %

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)
21 Jan 33.5 °C 20 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
22 Jan 33.6 °C 22 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
23 Jan 33.1 °C 19 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
24 Jan 32.5 °C 19 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
25 Jan 35.2 °C 15 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
26 Jan 35.0 °C 18 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
27 Jan after 34.3 °C 24 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
28 Jan after 33.7 °C 28 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
29 Jan after 33.8 °C 25 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
30 Jan after 34.4 °C 24 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
31 Jan after 33.8 °C 26 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
1 Feb after 33.1 °C 20 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
2 Feb after 34.3 °C 25 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
3 Feb after 34.3 °C 21 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
4 Feb after 34.4 °C 19 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
5 Feb after 33.7 °C 20 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 14 Jan 2022
After · 2 Feb 2022

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 · 208Every 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 21 January 2022 and 26 January 2022: 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 5,476 hectares (54.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Bulen (5,516 ha, 1.8 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 35.2 °C, humidity dropped to 15 % and gusts hit 34 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 42, 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.