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Dangura fire, 9 February 2016 Mandura, Bulen, Dangura

Out · last detection 14 Mar 2016, 23:17 UTC

The fire started on 9 February 2016 in Dangura, Ethiopia, and satellites saw it burning for 34 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 89,959 hectares from heat detections, spread across 5 municipalities.

It is the 4th largest in Beneshangul Gumu since 2016 (of 699 with a page). The largest in Ethiopia in 2016, of 309.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Bulen · 2022Dangura · 2020Dangura · 2017Mandura · 2024

Burnt area
89,959ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
34days
9 Feb 2016 – 13 Mar 2016
Municipalities hit
5
districts
Started on
9 Feb
2016
Heat detections
4,092
in a single hotspot: 260 MW
Danger at start
46
Very high · FWI index
Average daily power
1.3GW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 9 Feb13 Mar
14 Mar 2016

How it evolved, day by day

9 Feb 2016 · 25 MW · 4 11 Feb 2016 · 148 MW · 5 12 Feb 2016 · 26 MW · 10 13 Feb 2016 · 46 MW · 10 14 Feb 2016 · 166 MW · 4 15 Feb 2016 · 35 MW · 8 16 Feb 2016 · 284 MW · 67 17 Feb 2016 · 1,202 MW · 230 18 Feb 2016 · 2,912 MW · 276 19 Feb 2016 · 466 MW · 68 20 Feb 2016 · 2,634 MW · 276 21 Feb 2016 · 9,165 MW · 620 22 Feb 2016 · 3,367 MW · 286 23 Feb 2016 · 988 MW · 199 24 Feb 2016 · 1,770 MW · 191 25 Feb 2016 · 1,779 MW · 222 26 Feb 2016 · 3,033 MW · 250 27 Feb 2016 · 2,939 MW · 192 28 Feb 2016 · 2,337 MW · 160 29 Feb 2016 · 742 MW · 103 1 Mar 2016 · 1,228 MW · 67 2 Mar 2016 · 424 MW · 45 3 Mar 2016 · 604 MW · 68 4 Mar 2016 · 217 MW · 17 5 Mar 2016 · 84 MW · 25 6 Mar 2016 · 1,572 MW · 236 7 Mar 2016 · 1,654 MW · 116 8 Mar 2016 · 1,822 MW · 97 9 Mar 2016 · 644 MW · 57 10 Mar 2016 · 2,232 MW · 123 11 Mar 2016 · 773 MW · 44 12 Mar 2016 · 39 MW · 2 13 Mar 2016 · 82 MW · 11 14 Mar 2016 · 1 MW · 3
9 Feb 15 Feb 20 Feb 21 Feb 25 Feb 1 Mar 6 Mar 11 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

41°high
41km/h · peak gust
5%lowest humidity

It had gone 50 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.8 mm on 14 Mar.

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 57% of the area of London (900 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. Mandura
    41,962 ha reached on 12 Feb
    39 %
  2. Bulen
    22,737 ha reached on 21 Feb
    7.5 %
  3. Dangura where it started
    20,114 ha reached on 9 Feb
    4.0 %
  4. Dibat
    5,652 ha reached on 20 Feb
    2.5 %
  5. Wenbera
    63 ha reached on 14 Feb
    0.0 %

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 2015
Built-up area2.4 ha
Residents≈ 3,300

Inside the perimeter there were about 2.4 hectares of built-up land and about 3,300 residents (GHSL 2015, 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)
9 Feb 37.4 °C 16 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
10 Feb 36.1 °C 17 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
11 Feb 35.8 °C 14 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
12 Feb 36.3 °C 17 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
13 Feb 36.6 °C 19 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
14 Feb 37.8 °C 14 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
15 Feb 37.1 °C 15 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
16 Feb 37.6 °C 16 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
17 Feb 37.6 °C 14 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
18 Feb 37.9 °C 15 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
19 Feb 39.0 °C 12 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
20 Feb 39.6 °C 12 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
21 Feb 38.8 °C 12 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
22 Feb 36.6 °C 15 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
23 Feb 36.1 °C 14 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
24 Feb 38.2 °C 14 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
25 Feb 38.0 °C 15 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
26 Feb 38.3 °C 12 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
27 Feb 38.5 °C 13 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
28 Feb 39.0 °C 12 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
29 Feb 41.3 °C 8 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
1 Mar 39.8 °C 14 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
2 Mar 39.4 °C 13 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
3 Mar 39.7 °C 10 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
4 Mar 40.5 °C 9 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
5 Mar 39.9 °C 11 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
6 Mar 40.0 °C 13 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
7 Mar 39.5 °C 9 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
8 Mar 39.6 °C 7 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
9 Mar 40.9 °C 5 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 63
10 Mar 39.3 °C 11 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
11 Mar 40.5 °C 9 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
12 Mar 40.6 °C 13 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
13 Mar 39.8 °C 17 % 19 km/h 1.5 mm Very high 38
14 Mar after 37.5 °C 24 % 46 km/h 1.8 mm Very high 39

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 2 Feb 2016
After · 20 Mar 2016

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 · 4,092Every 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 Dangura fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 9 February 2016 to 13 March 2016 (34 days). The perimeter dates it from 15 February 2016 to 8 March 2016.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 89,959 hectares (899.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 5 municipalities: Mandura (41,962 ha, 39 %); Bulen (22,737 ha, 7.5 %); Dangura (20,114 ha, 4.0 %); Dibat (5,652 ha, 2.5 %); Wenbera (63 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 41.3 °C, humidity dropped to 5 % and gusts hit 41 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 63, 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 · 2 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
  1. Last day with fire: 8 March 2016 → 13 March 2016.
  2. Start date: 15 February 2016 → 9 February 2016.

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; 10 polygons grouped in this page.
  • Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 15 February 2016 to 8 March 2016. 4,092 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 2015, 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.