Cheta fire, November 2021 Cheta
The fire started on 30 November 2021 in Cheta, Ethiopia, and satellites saw it burning for 16 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,851 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 85th largest in SNNPR since 2016 (of 186 with a page). Number 139 in Ethiopia in 2021, of 256.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 2,851ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 16days
- 30 Nov 2021 – 15 Dec 2021
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- districts
- Started on
- 30 Nov
- 2021
- Heat detections
- 89
- in a single hotspot: 53 MW
- Danger at start
- 24
- High · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 87MW
- 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 24 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
97% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,289 ha in 2016, 41 ha in 2017, 2,743 ha in 2019, 1,257 ha in 2020. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,757 ha that had burned before.
- 2,196 ha Cheta fire, January 2019 14,263 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,580 ha Ela (Konta) SP Woreda fire, February 2016 2,407 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 101 ha Decha fire, December 2016 19,581 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
-
Cheta where it started2,869 ha reached on 1 Dec4.3 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 6 Dec | 30.9 °C | 34 % | 19 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 7 Dec | 31.7 °C | 25 % | 21 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 25 |
| 8 Dec | 30.2 °C | 34 % | 17 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 9 Dec | 31.4 °C | 28 % | 21 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 23 |
| 10 Dec | 31.5 °C | 22 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 11 Dec | 31.0 °C | 19 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 12 Dec | 31.1 °C | 20 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 13 Dec | 30.8 °C | 27 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 28 |
| 14 Dec | 31.0 °C | 31 % | 19 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 15 Dec | 29.9 °C | 37 % | 19 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 23 |
| 16 Dec after | 30.2 °C | 37 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 23 |
| 17 Dec after | 28.7 °C | 43 % | 17 km/h | 0.1 mm | Moderate 20 |
| 18 Dec after | 31.4 °C | 35 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | Moderate 21 |
| 19 Dec after | 31.6 °C | 33 % | 21 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 22 |
| 20 Dec after | 30.2 °C | 42 % | 23 km/h | 0.7 mm | Moderate 18 |
| 21 Dec after | 31.4 °C | 34 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 22 |
| 22 Dec after | 31.6 °C | 32 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
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 · 89Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 14,263 haChetaJanuary 2019 · 25 days · 6 km away
- 19,581 haDecha25 December 2016 · 28 days · 14 km away
- 17,621 haEla (Konta) SP Woreda17 December 2016 · 40 days · 16 km away
- 18,545 haDecha23 January 2021 · 25 days · 32 km away
- 18,505 haEla (Konta) SP Woreda3 January 2019 · 23 days · 33 km away
- 20,202 haEla (Konta) SP Woreda22 December 2016 · 34 days · 36 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Cheta fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 30 November 2021 to 15 December 2021 (16 days). The perimeter dates it from 6 December 2021 to 12 December 2021.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 2,851 hectares (28.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Cheta (2,869 ha, 4.3 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 31.7 °C, humidity dropped to 19 % and gusts hit 30 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 29, class 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 adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 6 December 2021 to 12 December 2021. 89 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.