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Dibat fire, 12 March 2017 Dibat

Out · last detection 22 Mar 2017, 10:47 UTC

The fire started on 12 March 2017 in Dibat, Ethiopia, and satellites saw it burning for 11 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,617 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 219th largest in Beneshangul Gumu since 2016 (of 699 with a page). Number 97 in Ethiopia in 2017, of 266.

Burnt area
3,617ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
11days
12 Mar 2017 – 22 Mar 2017
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
12 Mar
2017
Heat detections
127
in a single hotspot: 74 MW
Danger at start
41
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
1.3GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

22 Mar 2017
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 12 Mar22 Mar

How it evolved, day by day

121314171819202122

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
31km/h · peak gust
13%lowest humidity

It had gone 21 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: 3,271 ha in 2016.

What happened to each town

  1. Dibat where it started
    3,638 ha reached on 12 Mar
    1.6 %

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)
12 Mar 35.5 °C 13 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
13 Mar 35.5 °C 14 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
14 Mar 36.9 °C 17 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
15 Mar 34.8 °C 17 % 26 km/h 0.2 mm Very high 41
16 Mar 36.7 °C 15 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
17 Mar 34.3 °C 14 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
18 Mar 33.5 °C 18 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
19 Mar 34.6 °C 16 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
20 Mar 34.6 °C 14 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
21 Mar 34.6 °C 21 % 31 km/h 0.1 mm Very high 41
22 Mar 34.3 °C 24 % 28 km/h 2.3 mm Moderate 18
23 Mar after 36.0 °C 13 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
24 Mar after 37.7 °C 2 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
25 Mar after 36.3 °C 9 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
26 Mar after 34.7 °C 11 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
27 Mar after 36.6 °C 9 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
28 Mar after 36.5 °C 7 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
29 Mar after 35.4 °C 8 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
30 Mar after 35.5 °C 6 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
31 Mar after 34.6 °C 17 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
1 Apr after 35.7 °C 16 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 5 Mar 2017
After · 29 Mar 2017

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 · 127Every 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 Dibat fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 12 March 2017 and 22 March 2017: 11 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 3,617 hectares (36.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Dibat (3,638 ha, 1.6 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.9 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 31 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 47, 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

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.