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Bulen fire, 26 January 2022 Bulen, Mandura, Dangura

Out · last detection 20 Mar 2022, 23:23 UTC

The fire started on 26 January 2022 in Bulen, Ethiopia, and satellites saw it burning for 53 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 91,996 hectares from heat detections, spread across 5 municipalities.

This page is probably a fire complex, not a single fire. GWIS merges into one perimeter the fires that touch over weeks, which in large burning seasons can join dozens of separate fires. The total area is reliable; the origin and dates refer to the whole complex.

Other fire pages in the same area and on the same dates:

It is the 3th largest in Beneshangul Gumu since 2016 (of 699 with a page). Number 2 in Ethiopia in 2022, of 135.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Dangura · 2020Dangura · 2016Dangura · 2018Mandura · 2021

Burnt area
91,996ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
53days
26 Jan 2022 – 19 Mar 2022
Municipalities hit
5
districts
Started on
26 Jan
2022
Heat detections
3,732
in a single hotspot: 170 MW
Danger at start
38
Very high · FWI index
Average daily power
526MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 26 Jan19 Mar
20 Mar 2022

How it evolved, day by day

26 Jan 2022 · 601 MW · 82 27 Jan 2022 · 68 MW · 13 28 Jan 2022 · 36 MW · 12 29 Jan 2022 · 488 MW · 42 30 Jan 2022 · 453 MW · 110 31 Jan 2022 · 456 MW · 111 1 Feb 2022 · 400 MW · 82 2 Feb 2022 · 190 MW · 36 3 Feb 2022 · 197 MW · 25 4 Feb 2022 · 2,021 MW · 211 5 Feb 2022 · 403 MW · 114 6 Feb 2022 · 1,462 MW · 158 7 Feb 2022 · 359 MW · 74 8 Feb 2022 · 212 MW · 23 9 Feb 2022 · 565 MW · 47 10 Feb 2022 · 461 MW · 91 11 Feb 2022 · 1,024 MW · 112 12 Feb 2022 · 436 MW · 27 13 Feb 2022 · 153 MW · 25 14 Feb 2022 · 457 MW · 64 15 Feb 2022 · 381 MW · 74 16 Feb 2022 · 910 MW · 76 17 Feb 2022 · 425 MW · 61 18 Feb 2022 · 286 MW · 31 19 Feb 2022 · 16 MW · 7 20 Feb 2022 · 109 MW · 28 21 Feb 2022 · 482 MW · 74 22 Feb 2022 · 482 MW · 114 23 Feb 2022 · 626 MW · 130 24 Feb 2022 · 756 MW · 109 25 Feb 2022 · 548 MW · 91 26 Feb 2022 · 411 MW · 89 27 Feb 2022 · 2,306 MW · 175 28 Feb 2022 · 271 MW · 24 1 Mar 2022 · 84 MW · 10 2 Mar 2022 · 484 MW · 25 3 Mar 2022 · 337 MW · 32 4 Mar 2022 · 1,916 MW · 137 5 Mar 2022 · 1,418 MW · 134 6 Mar 2022 · 838 MW · 122 7 Mar 2022 · 177 MW · 21 8 Mar 2022 · 157 MW · 17 9 Mar 2022 · 114 MW · 7 10 Mar 2022 · 622 MW · 102 11 Mar 2022 · 1,249 MW · 188 12 Mar 2022 · 662 MW · 127 13 Mar 2022 · 433 MW · 54 14 Mar 2022 · 237 MW · 23 15 Mar 2022 · 109 MW · 9 16 Mar 2022 · 45 MW · 5 17 Mar 2022 · 84 MW · 13 18 Mar 2022 · 839 MW · 43 19 Mar 2022 · 132 MW · 11 20 Mar 2022 · 23 MW · 4
26 Jan 3 Feb 11 Feb 19 Feb 27 Feb 7 Mar 15 Mar

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

The weather it burned in

40°high
34km/h · peak gust
9%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

96% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 53,374 ha in 2016, 52,181 ha in 2017, 37,579 ha in 2018, 44,682 ha in 2019, 53,544 ha in 2020, 46,397 ha in 2021. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 88,095 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 58% of the area of London (920 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each town

  1. Bulen where it started
    40,706 ha reached on 25 Jan
    13 %
  2. Mandura
    30,099 ha reached on 2 Feb
    28 %
  3. Dangura
    15,966 ha reached on 27 Jan
    3.2 %
  4. Dibat
    5,010 ha reached on 1 Feb
    2.2 %
  5. Wenbera
    807 ha reached on 25 Jan
    0.1 %

Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance runs from the point marking the centre of each area to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.

People and buildings inside the perimeter

GHSL 2020
Built-up area3.9 ha
Residents≈ 3,100

Inside the perimeter there were about 3.9 hectares of built-up land and about 3,100 residents (GHSL 2020, satellite-based estimate).

This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned.

Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu

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 Jan 34.9 °C 17 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
27 Jan 34.1 °C 24 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
28 Jan 33.5 °C 25 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
29 Jan 33.7 °C 24 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
30 Jan 34.2 °C 21 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
31 Jan 33.7 °C 23 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
1 Feb 32.7 °C 18 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
2 Feb 34.2 °C 24 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
3 Feb 34.2 °C 20 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
4 Feb 34.2 °C 17 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
5 Feb 33.4 °C 19 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
6 Feb 32.0 °C 23 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
7 Feb 32.8 °C 17 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
8 Feb 33.6 °C 17 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
9 Feb 34.2 °C 18 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
10 Feb 35.0 °C 20 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
11 Feb 34.2 °C 19 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
12 Feb 33.6 °C 25 % 22 km/h 0.8 mm High 31
13 Feb 34.9 °C 20 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
14 Feb 35.6 °C 15 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
15 Feb 36.4 °C 17 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
16 Feb 35.2 °C 16 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
17 Feb 35.8 °C 13 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
18 Feb 36.0 °C 14 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
19 Feb 35.0 °C 9 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
20 Feb 34.0 °C 10 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
21 Feb 34.5 °C 16 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
22 Feb 35.4 °C 17 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
23 Feb 35.0 °C 13 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
24 Feb 35.7 °C 14 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
25 Feb 34.9 °C 12 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
26 Feb 35.3 °C 11 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
27 Feb 36.1 °C 16 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
28 Feb 36.4 °C 19 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
1 Mar 38.1 °C 20 % 29 km/h 0.7 mm Very high 41
2 Mar 38.0 °C 16 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
3 Mar 38.2 °C 14 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
4 Mar 38.2 °C 14 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
5 Mar 39.0 °C 11 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
6 Mar 38.3 °C 13 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
7 Mar 40.1 °C 14 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
8 Mar 40.0 °C 10 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
9 Mar 40.5 °C 11 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
10 Mar 40.0 °C 11 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
11 Mar 40.2 °C 12 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
12 Mar 37.6 °C 16 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
13 Mar 37.2 °C 17 % 29 km/h 0.1 mm Very high 48
14 Mar 38.0 °C 17 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
15 Mar 37.4 °C 18 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
16 Mar 35.8 °C 20 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
17 Mar 34.8 °C 17 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
18 Mar 35.6 °C 17 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
19 Mar 35.4 °C 16 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
20 Mar after 36.7 °C 14 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
21 Mar after 37.4 °C 13 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
22 Mar after 37.6 °C 11 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
23 Mar after 38.3 °C 9 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
24 Mar after 38.5 °C 7 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
25 Mar after 37.5 °C 11 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
26 Mar after 37.8 °C 12 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
27 Mar after 38.5 °C 11 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
28 Mar after 37.2 °C 15 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
29 Mar after 38.6 °C 14 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 19 Jan 2022
After · 26 Mar 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 · 3,732Every 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 January 2022 and 19 March 2022: 53 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 91,996 hectares (920.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 5 municipalities: Bulen (40,706 ha, 13 %); Mandura (30,099 ha, 28 %); Dangura (15,966 ha, 3.2 %); Dibat (5,010 ha, 2.2 %); Wenbera (807 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 40.5 °C, humidity dropped to 9 % and gusts hit 34 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 55, 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

History of this page Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.

No changes since 24 October 2026.

RSS Changes to this page

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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How we know this
  • Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery; 16 polygons grouped in this page.
  • Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 3,732 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
  • We have not matched this page with any official record.
  • Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
  • Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2020, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.

How we build fire pages: methodology ›

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.