Dima fire, 28 January 2021 Dima, Gog
The fire started on 28 January 2021 in Dima, Ethiopia, and satellites saw it burning for 20 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 102,019 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
This page is probably a fire complex, not a single fire. GWIS merges into one perimeter the fires that touch over weeks, which in large burning seasons can join dozens of separate fires. The total area is reliable; the origin and dates refer to the whole complex.
It is the 2th largest in Gambela since 2016 (of 611 with a page). The largest in Ethiopia in 2021, of 255.
- Burnt area
- 102,019ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 20days
- 28 Jan 2021 – 16 Feb 2021
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- districts
- Started on
- 28 Jan
- 2021
- Heat detections
- 3,303
- in a single hotspot: 218 MW
- Danger at start
- 23
- High · FWI index
- Energy released
- 34.4GW
- 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.
The weather it burned in
It had gone 3 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.0 mm on 20 Feb.
This area had burned before
83% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 50,892 ha in 2016, 31,629 ha in 2017, 33,388 ha in 2018, 24,311 ha in 2019, 5,326 ha in 2020. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 84,717 ha that had burned before.
- 11,894 ha Dima fire, December 2016 48,364 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 10,911 ha Dima fire, January 2016 15,296 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 7,432 ha Dima fire, December 2016 11,210 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 6,167 ha Dima fire, January 2018 7,686 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 5,409 ha Dima fire, January 2019 20,169 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 4,856 ha Dima fire, December 2018 8,902 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 3,462 ha Dima fire, December 2018 4,210 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 3,400 ha Dima fire, January 2019 5,853 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
Dima where it started102,379 ha reached on 21 Jan13 %
-
352 ha reached on 8 Feb0.1 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 28 Jan | 34.5 °C | 29 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 23 |
| 29 Jan | 35.1 °C | 29 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 23 |
| 30 Jan | 34.9 °C | 28 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 24 |
| 31 Jan | 35.6 °C | 24 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 26 |
| 1 Feb | 35.3 °C | 25 % | 21 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 2 Feb | 35.7 °C | 25 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 27 |
| 3 Feb | 36.1 °C | 23 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 31 |
| 4 Feb | 36.5 °C | 22 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 5 Feb | 36.6 °C | 22 % | 19 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 29 |
| 6 Feb | 36.3 °C | 17 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 7 Feb | 35.4 °C | 16 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 8 Feb | 36.7 °C | 17 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 9 Feb | 36.1 °C | 29 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 10 Feb | 37.3 °C | 25 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 11 Feb | 36.0 °C | 24 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 12 Feb | 37.4 °C | 19 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 13 Feb | 38.2 °C | 16 % | 21 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 14 Feb | 37.5 °C | 23 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 15 Feb | 37.4 °C | 22 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 16 Feb | 37.3 °C | 23 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 17 Feb after | 36.6 °C | 24 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 18 Feb after | 35.3 °C | 24 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 19 Feb after | 34.4 °C | 21 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 20 Feb after | 32.6 °C | 30 % | 18 km/h | 1.0 mm | High 22 |
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 · 3,303Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 15,296 haDima29 January 2016 · 10 days · 1 km away
- 15,631 haDima11 February 2023 · 5 days · 25 km away
- 32,332 haPibor25 January 2022 · 16 days · 31 km away
- 15,140 haGurafereda1 January 2017 · 24 days · 32 km away
- 17,615 haDima6 January 2019 · 13 days · 35 km away
- 18,648 haDima14 February 2023 · 6 days · 37 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Dima fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 28 January 2021 and 16 February 2021: 20 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 102,019 hectares (1,020.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Dima (102,379 ha, 13 %); Gog (352 ha, 0.1 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 38.2 °C, humidity dropped to 16 % and gusts hit 36 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 40, 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.
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.