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Dima fire, 8 January 2019 Dima, Gog

Out · last detection 23 Jan 2019, 23:24 UTC

The fire started on 8 January 2019 in Dima, Ethiopia, and satellites saw it burning for 15 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 20,169 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 16th largest in Gambela since 2016 (of 611 with a page). Number 4 in Ethiopia in 2019, of 220.

Burnt area
20,169ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
15days
8 Jan 2019 – 22 Jan 2019
Municipalities hit
2
districts
Started on
8 Jan
2019
Heat detections
607
in a single hotspot: 194 MW
Danger at start
36
High · FWI index
Energy released
7.9GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

23 Jan 2019
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 8 Jan22 Jan

How it evolved, day by day

891011121314151617181920212223

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

The weather it burned in

40°high
36km/h · peak gust
14%lowest humidity

It had gone 40 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

58% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 5,109 ha in 2016, 8,556 ha in 2017, 1,879 ha in 2018. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 11,775 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Dima where it started
    14,194 ha reached on 7 Jan
    1.8 %
  2. Gog
    6,118 ha reached on 7 Jan
    1.9 %

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.

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)
7 Jan 38.5 °C 19 % 17 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
8 Jan 38.4 °C 20 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
9 Jan 37.9 °C 18 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
10 Jan 38.4 °C 17 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
11 Jan 37.9 °C 20 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
12 Jan 38.5 °C 18 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
13 Jan 38.6 °C 17 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
14 Jan 39.0 °C 15 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
15 Jan 40.2 °C 14 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
16 Jan 40.0 °C 15 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
17 Jan 40.1 °C 17 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
18 Jan 40.1 °C 17 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
19 Jan 38.2 °C 20 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
20 Jan 38.3 °C 21 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
21 Jan 39.4 °C 18 % 17 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
22 Jan 39.7 °C 17 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
23 Jan after 39.3 °C 16 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
24 Jan after 39.7 °C 17 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
25 Jan after 39.9 °C 18 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
26 Jan after 39.9 °C 18 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
27 Jan after 40.0 °C 20 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
28 Jan after 40.9 °C 19 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
29 Jan after 38.7 °C 25 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
30 Jan after 38.7 °C 21 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
31 Jan after 38.6 °C 19 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
1 Feb after 39.6 °C 19 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 1 Jan 2019
After · 29 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 · 607Every 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 Dima fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 8 January 2019 and 22 January 2019: 15 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 20,169 hectares (201.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Dima (14,194 ha, 1.8 %); Gog (6,118 ha, 1.9 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 40.2 °C, humidity dropped to 14 % and gusts hit 36 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 50, 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

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.