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Dembecha fire, December 2018 Debre Elias, Amuru, Dembecha

Out · last detection 31 Dec 2018, 22:14 UTC

The fire started on 22 December 2018 in Dembecha, Ethiopia, and satellites saw it burning for 10 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 10,555 hectares from heat detections, spread across 4 municipalities.

It is the 14th largest in Amhara since 2016 (of 171 with a page). Number 5 in Ethiopia in 2018, of 96.

Burnt area
10,555ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
10days
22 Dec 2018 – 31 Dec 2018
Municipalities hit
4
districts
Started on
22 Dec
2018
Heat detections
346
in a single hotspot: 62 MW
Danger at start
29
High · FWI index
Energy released
1.9GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

31 Dec 2018
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 22 Dec31 Dec

How it evolved, day by day

22232425262728293031

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

The weather it burned in

37°high
29km/h · peak gust
22%lowest humidity

It had gone 30 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

90% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 9,442 ha in 2016, 5,778 ha in 2017. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 9,527 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Debre Elias
    7,683 ha reached on 21 Dec
    6.6 %
  2. Amuru
    2,536 ha reached on 20 Dec
    2.2 %
  3. Dembecha where it started
    203 ha reached on 17 Dec
    0.2 %
  4. Bure
    202 ha reached on 28 Dec
    0.2 %

Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance is from the town centre 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)
17 Dec 34.7 °C 33 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
18 Dec 35.5 °C 28 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
19 Dec 35.4 °C 27 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
20 Dec 35.0 °C 29 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
21 Dec 34.9 °C 26 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
22 Dec 34.9 °C 30 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
23 Dec 34.7 °C 31 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
24 Dec 35.5 °C 31 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
25 Dec 35.8 °C 28 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
26 Dec 36.2 °C 23 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
27 Dec 35.6 °C 29 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
28 Dec 36.8 °C 23 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
29 Dec 35.8 °C 24 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
30 Dec 36.6 °C 26 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
31 Dec 36.1 °C 22 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
1 Jan after 35.9 °C 16 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
2 Jan after 35.4 °C 24 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
3 Jan after 36.1 °C 22 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
4 Jan after 37.5 °C 11 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
5 Jan after 36.0 °C 9 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
6 Jan after 35.6 °C 14 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
7 Jan after 35.9 °C 16 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
8 Jan after 38.1 °C 10 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
9 Jan after 36.8 °C 10 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
10 Jan after 36.3 °C 6 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 15 Dec 2018
After · 7 Jan 2019

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 · 346Every 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 Dembecha fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 22 December 2018 and 31 December 2018: 10 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 10,555 hectares (105.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 4 municipalities: Debre Elias (7,683 ha, 6.6 %); Amuru (2,536 ha, 2.2 %); Dembecha (203 ha, 0.2 %); Bure (202 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.8 °C, humidity dropped to 22 % and gusts hit 29 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 35, 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

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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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.