Dibat fire, February 2022 Dibat
The fire started on 6 February 2022 in Dibat, Ethiopia, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,078 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 653th largest in Beneshangul Gumu since 2016 (of 699 with a page). Number 127 in Ethiopia in 2022, of 135.
The power measured by the satellite is low (19.0 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.
- Burnt area
- 2,078ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 4days
- 6 Feb 2022 – 9 Feb 2022
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- districts
- Started on
- 6 Feb
- 2022
- Heat detections
- 60
- in a single hotspot: 19 MW
- Energy released
- 271MW
- 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
94% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,642 ha in 2016, 140 ha in 2017, 84 ha in 2018, 266 ha in 2019, 1,030 ha in 2020, 1,273 ha in 2021. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,962 ha that had burned before.
- 1,642 ha Dibat fire, February 2016 8,143 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 262 ha Dibat fire, January 2019 3,299 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 140 ha Dibat fire, March 2017 3,617 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 29 ha Dibat fire, January 2020 7,791 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
Dibat where it started2,089 ha reached on 4 Feb0.9 %
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 · 60Every 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 · 5 km away
- 7,791 haDibat23 January 2020 · 15 days · 16 km away
- 7,826 haDibat28 February 2020 · 8 days · 20 km away
- 8,828 haYaso5 January 2016 · 16 days · 26 km away
- 11,905 haYaso7 January 2017 · 8 days · 29 km away
- 8,720 haBulen10 January 2019 · 14 days · 33 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Dibat fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 6 February 2022 and 9 February 2022: 4 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 2,078 hectares (20.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Dibat (2,089 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.