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Dima fire, 6 January 2019 Dima

Out · last detection 19 Jan 2019, 10:22 UTC

The fire started on 6 January 2019 in Dima, Ethiopia, and satellites saw it burning for 13 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 17,615 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 21th largest in Gambela since 2016 (of 611 with a page). Number 6 in Ethiopia in 2019, of 220.

Burnt area
17,615ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
13days
6 Jan 2019 – 18 Jan 2019
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
6 Jan
2019
Heat detections
503
in a single hotspot: 236 MW
Danger at start
38
High · FWI index
Energy released
9.6GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

19 Jan 2019
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 6 Jan18 Jan

How it evolved, day by day

678910111213141516171819

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
35km/h · peak gust
13%lowest humidity

It had gone 39 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

76% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 9,848 ha in 2016, 4,674 ha in 2017, 4,778 ha in 2018. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 13,462 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Dima where it started
    17,747 ha reached on 6 Jan
    2.3 %

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)
6 Jan 38.2 °C 20 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
7 Jan 38.6 °C 18 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
8 Jan 38.7 °C 19 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
9 Jan 38.2 °C 17 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
10 Jan 39.0 °C 15 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
11 Jan 38.3 °C 19 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
12 Jan 39.0 °C 16 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
13 Jan 38.8 °C 16 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
14 Jan 39.2 °C 13 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
15 Jan 40.3 °C 13 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
16 Jan 39.7 °C 16 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
17 Jan 39.7 °C 19 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
18 Jan 40.2 °C 18 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
19 Jan after 37.9 °C 22 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
20 Jan after 38.7 °C 20 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
21 Jan after 39.4 °C 18 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
22 Jan after 39.7 °C 16 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
23 Jan after 39.3 °C 17 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
24 Jan after 39.7 °C 16 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
25 Jan after 40.0 °C 18 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
26 Jan after 39.8 °C 18 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
27 Jan after 39.9 °C 20 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
28 Jan after 40.8 °C 20 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
29 Jan after 38.9 °C 26 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
30 Jan after 38.5 °C 21 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
31 Jan after 38.4 °C 18 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
1 Feb after 40.0 °C 18 % 25 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 · 30 Dec 2018
After · 25 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 · 503Every 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 6 January 2019 and 18 January 2019: 13 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 17,615 hectares (176.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Dima (17,747 ha, 2.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 40.3 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 35 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 49, 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.