Dima fire, 29 December 2018 Dima, Gog
The fire started on 29 December 2018 in Dima, Ethiopia, and satellites saw it burning for 19 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 26,386 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 11th largest in Gambela since 2016 (of 611 with a page). Number 3 in Ethiopia in 2018, of 102.
Compare with…
Suggestions: Dima · 2018Dima · 2016Dima · 2018Dima · 2016
- Burnt area
- 26,386ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 19days
- 29 Dec 2018 – 16 Jan 2019
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- districts
- Started on
- 29 Dec
- 2018
- Heat detections
- 737
- in a single hotspot: 151 MW
- Danger at start
- 36
- High · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 709MW
- detected power per day, on average
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.
The weather it burned in
It had gone 23 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
70% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 13,273 ha in 2016, 2,205 ha in 2017, 12,818 ha in 2018. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 18,424 ha that had burned before.
- 9,953 ha Dima fire, January 2018 17,819 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 4,347 ha Dima fire, December 2016 7,056 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,242 ha Dima fire, January 2018 9,823 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,916 ha Dima fire, January 2016 4,062 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,423 ha Dima fire, January 2016 6,966 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,027 ha Dima fire, January 2016 2,058 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 188 ha Gog fire, January 2017 2,845 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 158 ha Gog fire, December 2017 3,236 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
How big is it?
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Paris boundary: geoBoundaries · Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière (IGN-F) (Etalab Open License 2.0).
Madrid boundary: geoBoundaries · Open Data ESRI, IGN Central Registry of Cartography Area (CC BY 4.0).
Berlin boundary: geoBoundaries · Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy (dl-de/by-2-0).
This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.
What happened to each town
-
Dima where it started23,476 ha reached on 29 Dec3.0 %
-
3,103 ha reached on 29 Dec1.0 %
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.
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 29 Dec | 37.8 °C | 25 % | 26 km/h | 0.3 mm | High 36 |
| 30 Dec | 36.1 °C | 29 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 31 Dec | 34.9 °C | 35 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 1 Jan | 35.7 °C | 34 % | 28 km/h | 0.4 mm | High 37 |
| 2 Jan | 36.0 °C | 29 % | 17 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 3 Jan | 36.9 °C | 23 % | 16 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 4 Jan | 37.7 °C | 25 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 5 Jan | 37.5 °C | 25 % | 21 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 6 Jan | 38.3 °C | 20 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 7 Jan | 38.6 °C | 16 % | 18 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 8 Jan | 38.5 °C | 15 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 9 Jan | 38.1 °C | 17 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 10 Jan | 38.5 °C | 14 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 11 Jan | 38.1 °C | 19 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 12 Jan | 38.7 °C | 17 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 13 Jan | 38.9 °C | 15 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 14 Jan | 39.1 °C | 13 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 15 Jan | 40.4 °C | 11 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 16 Jan | 40.2 °C | 11 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 17 Jan after | 40.3 °C | 14 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 18 Jan after | 40.4 °C | 16 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 50 |
| 19 Jan after | 39.0 °C | 18 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 20 Jan after | 38.7 °C | 19 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 21 Jan after | 39.7 °C | 15 % | 17 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 22 Jan after | 40.2 °C | 14 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 23 Jan after | 39.8 °C | 14 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 24 Jan after | 39.7 °C | 15 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 25 Jan after | 40.1 °C | 15 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 50 |
| 26 Jan after | 40.4 °C | 16 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
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 · 737Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Dima fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 29 December 2018 to 16 January 2019 (19 days). The perimeter dates it from 3 January 2019 to 9 January 2019.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 26,386 hectares (263.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Dima (23,476 ha, 3.0 %); Gog (3,103 ha, 1.0 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 40.4 °C, humidity dropped to 11 % and gusts hit 34 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 53, 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
History of this page Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
No changes since 24 October 2026.
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
How we know this
- Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery; 3 polygons grouped in this page.
- Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 3 January 2019 to 9 January 2019. 737 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.
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.