Dibat fire, 28 March 2020 Dibat
The fire started on 28 March 2020 in Dibat, Ethiopia, and satellites saw it burning for 9 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,098 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 641th largest in Beneshangul Gumu since 2016 (of 699 with a page). Number 158 in Ethiopia in 2020, of 177.
- Burnt area
- 2,098ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 9days
- 28 Mar 2020 – 5 Apr 2020
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- districts
- Started on
- 28 Mar
- 2020
- Heat detections
- 48
- in a single hotspot: 50 MW
- Energy released
- 294MW
- sum of detected power
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.
This area had burned before
46% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 655 ha in 2016, 326 ha in 2017, 865 ha in 2018. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 967 ha that had burned before.
What happened to each town
-
Dibat where it started2,110 ha reached on 23 Mar0.9 %
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.
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 · 48Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 8,143 haDibat29 February 2016 · 8 days · 6 km away
- 7,826 haDibat28 February 2020 · 8 days · 16 km away
- 7,791 haDibat23 January 2020 · 15 days · 20 km away
- 8,720 haBulen10 January 2019 · 14 days · 26 km away
- 8,828 haYaso5 January 2016 · 16 days · 35 km away
- 11,905 haYaso7 January 2017 · 8 days · 38 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Dibat fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 28 March 2020 and 5 April 2020: 9 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 2,098 hectares (21.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Dibat (2,110 ha, 0.9 %).
- 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.
Report an error
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.