Bulen fire, 1 March 2023 Bulen, Dibat
The fire started on 1 March 2023 in Bulen, Ethiopia, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,620 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 430th largest in Beneshangul Gumu since 2016 (of 699 with a page). Number 59 in Ethiopia in 2023, of 101.
Compare with…
Suggestions: Bulen · 2022Bulen · 2019Mandura · 2017Dangura · 2016
- Burnt area
- 2,620ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 6days
- 1 Mar 2023 – 6 Mar 2023
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- districts
- Started on
- 1 Mar
- 2023
- Heat detections
- 115
- in a single hotspot: 152 MW
- Danger at start
- 48
- Very high · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 508MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 6.0 mm on 12 Mar.
This area had burned before
100% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,384 ha in 2016, 1,757 ha in 2017, 1,895 ha in 2019, 847 ha in 2020, 52 ha in 2021, 2,081 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,637 ha that had burned before.
- 2,081 ha Bulen fire, January 2022 91,996 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,895 ha Bulen fire, February 2019 10,720 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,408 ha Mandura fire, February 2017 33,850 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,384 ha Dangura fire, February 2016 89,959 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 194 ha Dangura fire, January 2020 125,093 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 47 ha Bulen fire, April 2021 4,952 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 6 ha Bulen fire, February 2021 8,987 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
How big is it?
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Paris boundary: geoBoundaries · Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière (IGN-F) (Etalab Open License 2.0).
Madrid boundary: geoBoundaries · Open Data ESRI, IGN Central Registry of Cartography Area (CC BY 4.0).
Berlin boundary: geoBoundaries · Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy (dl-de/by-2-0).
This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.
What happened to each town
-
Bulen where it started2,509 ha reached on 1 Mar0.8 %
-
130 ha reached on 1 Mar0.1 %
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.
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 Mar | 33.7 °C | 13 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 2 Mar | 32.5 °C | 12 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 3 Mar | 34.8 °C | 9 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 4 Mar | 35.2 °C | 11 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 5 Mar | 32.7 °C | 17 % | 21 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 6 Mar | 35.5 °C | 18 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 7 Mar after | 35.5 °C | 17 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 8 Mar after | 33.1 °C | 17 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 9 Mar after | 32.3 °C | 27 % | 23 km/h | 0.8 mm | High 30 |
| 10 Mar after | 29.8 °C | 31 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 30 |
| 11 Mar after | 30.8 °C | 25 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 12 Mar after | 30.6 °C | 30 % | 22 km/h | 6.0 mm | Low 7 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
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 · 115Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 39,575 haDangura24 February 2025 · 15 days · 11 km away
- 42,975 haManduraMarch 2021 · 9 days · 25 km away
- 55,315 haDanguraMarch 2018 · 6 days · 27 km away
- 92,220 haDangura17 February 2026 · 26 days · 30 km away
- 55,089 haMandura25 February 2024 · 15 days · 30 km away
- 39,054 haDangura21 February 2017 · 10 days · 30 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Bulen fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 1 March 2023 and 6 March 2023: 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 2,620 hectares (26.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Bulen (2,509 ha, 0.8 %); Dibat (130 ha, 0.1 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 35.5 °C, humidity dropped to 9 % and gusts hit 38 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 49, 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
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.
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.
Report an error
How we know this
- Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery.
- Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 115 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.
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.