How long did the Dangura fire last?

According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 25 December 2024 to 16 January 2025 (23 days). The perimeter dates it from 29 December 2024 to 9 January 2025.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 6,651 hectares (66.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Dangura (6,699 ha, 1.3 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 37.6 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 34 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 52, 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.

ET · Ethiopia · 2024-12-25 → 2025-01-16

Dangura fire, December 2024 Dangura

Out · last detection 14 Jan 2025, 10:17 UTC

The fire started on 25 December 2024 in Dangura, Ethiopia, and satellites saw it burning for 23 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,651 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 74th largest in Beneshangul Gumu since 2016 (of 701 with a page). Number 7 in Ethiopia in 2024, of 87.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Dangura · 2019 Guba · 2017 Dangura · 2019 Guba · 2026

Burnt area: 6,651ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 23days; 25 Dec 2024 – 16 Jan 2025
Municipalities hit: 1; districts
Started on: 25 Dec; 2024
Heat detections: 361; in a single hotspot: 133 MW
Danger at start: 47; Very high · FWI index
Average daily power: 199MW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 25 Dec16 Jan

Play back 14 Jan 2025

How it evolved, day by day

25 Dec 29 Dec 30 Dec 1 Jan 4 Jan 7 Jan 10 Jan 14 Jan

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

The weather it burned in

38°high

34km/h · peak gust

13%lowest humidity

It had gone 52 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

66% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 3,969 ha in 2016, 1,431 ha in 2017, 1,891 ha in 2019, 1,181 ha in 2023, 369 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 4,398 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

It burned the equivalent of 4.2% of the area of London (67 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

Dangura where it started

6,699 ha reached on 25 Dec

1.3 %

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.

People and buildings inside the perimeter

GHSL 2025

Built-up area0.55 ha

Residents≈ 200

Inside the perimeter there were about 0.55 hectares of built-up land and about 200 residents (GHSL 2025, 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. The GHSL 2025 epoch is a projection made from 2020 and earlier data.

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	Danger (FWI)
25 Dec	35.0 °C	15 %	30 km/h	Very high 47
26 Dec	35.1 °C	17 %	28 km/h	Very high 47
27 Dec	35.3 °C	20 %	28 km/h	Very high 45
28 Dec	35.8 °C	21 %	27 km/h	Very high 43
29 Dec	36.4 °C	20 %	28 km/h	Very high 44
30 Dec	35.9 °C	16 %	28 km/h	Very high 46
31 Dec	35.2 °C	18 %	28 km/h	Very high 47
1 Jan	35.3 °C	19 %	28 km/h	Very high 47
2 Jan	35.7 °C	18 %	24 km/h	Very high 46
3 Jan	37.5 °C	14 %	26 km/h	Very high 46
4 Jan	37.2 °C	13 %	27 km/h	Very high 46
5 Jan	36.7 °C	14 %	29 km/h	Very high 48
6 Jan	35.9 °C	15 %	32 km/h	Very high 49
7 Jan	34.7 °C	14 %	29 km/h	Very high 47
8 Jan	35.3 °C	15 %	28 km/h	Very high 48
9 Jan	35.7 °C	15 %	28 km/h	Very high 49
10 Jan	35.2 °C	15 %	29 km/h	Very high 49
11 Jan	34.3 °C	17 %	34 km/h	Extreme 52
12 Jan	34.2 °C	17 %	33 km/h	Very high 50
13 Jan	35.1 °C	18 %	30 km/h	Very high 49
14 Jan	34.5 °C	19 %	26 km/h	Very high 46
15 Jan	37.1 °C	17 %	27 km/h	Very high 45
16 Jan	37.6 °C	19 %	25 km/h	Very high 45
17 Jan after	36.7 °C	14 %	28 km/h	Very high 46
18 Jan after	38.7 °C	10 %	24 km/h	Very high 48
19 Jan after	37.8 °C	12 %	30 km/h	Extreme 52
20 Jan after	38.1 °C	10 %	27 km/h	Extreme 52
21 Jan after	38.3 °C	10 %	26 km/h	Extreme 52
22 Jan after	36.9 °C	10 %	29 km/h	Extreme 54
23 Jan after	36.9 °C	11 %	31 km/h	Extreme 54
24 Jan after	34.0 °C	15 %	32 km/h	Extreme 54
25 Jan after	34.9 °C	17 %	33 km/h	Extreme 52
26 Jan after	35.0 °C	14 %	33 km/h	Extreme 52

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 18 Dec 2024

After · 23 Jan 2025

Before After

If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.

The smoke

CAMS · Copernicus

On 8 January 2025 the air beside the fire reached 66 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 32: 2.1 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak66 µg/m³

Days over the guideline8 days

PM1076 µg/m³

Optical depth0.38

WHO 15

2728293031123456789101112

Good Fair Moderate Poor Very poor Extremely poor

Particles from the Copernicus CAMS model at the centre of the perimeter; these are not measurements in each town. The pale bar is the worst hour, the solid one the daily average.

Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS)

Detections table · 361Every 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 time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

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 25 December 2024 to 16 January 2025 (23 days). The perimeter dates it from 29 December 2024 to 9 January 2025.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 6,651 hectares (66.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Dangura (6,699 ha, 1.3 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 37.6 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 34 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 52, 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

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

History of this page · 2 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.

27 October 2026 Last day with fire: 9 January 2025 → 16 January 2025.
27 October 2026 Start date: 29 December 2024 → 25 December 2024.

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.

Report an error

What do you think is wrong?

Dates or duration Place or towns Burned area Name It was not a wildfire Same fire as another page Something else

What really happened?

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How we know this

Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery; 2 polygons grouped in this page.
Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 29 December 2024 to 9 January 2025. 361 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 2025, 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.

Where it burned