Dima fire, 11 January 2022 Dima
The fire started on 11 January 2022 in Dima, Ethiopia, and satellites saw it burning for 1 day. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,241 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 497th largest in Gambela since 2016 (of 611 with a page). Number 103 in Ethiopia in 2022, of 135.
The power measured by the satellite is low (28.2 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
- 2,241ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 1day
- 11 Jan 2022 – 11 Jan 2022
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- districts
- Started on
- 11 Jan
- 2022
- Heat detections
- 60
- in a single hotspot: 28 MW
- Energy released
- 506MW
- 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
99% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,663 ha in 2016, 1,213 ha in 2017, 214 ha in 2018, 1,828 ha in 2019, 15 ha in 2020, 9 ha in 2021. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,227 ha that had burned before.
- 1,609 ha Dima fire, January 2016 6,966 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,460 ha Dima fire, January 2019 4,867 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 860 ha Dima fire, January 2017 4,884 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 368 ha Dima fire, January 2019 3,071 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 15 ha Dima fire, February 2020 14,976 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 7 ha Dima fire, January 2017 3,413 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
Dima where it started2,258 ha reached on 11 Jan0.3 %
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.
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
- 26,386 haDima3 January 2019 · 7 days · 13 km away
- 18,648 haDima14 February 2023 · 6 days · 13 km away
- 17,819 haDima11 January 2018 · 9 days · 17 km away
- 20,169 haDima8 January 2019 · 15 days · 22 km away
- 15,631 haDima11 February 2023 · 5 days · 23 km away
- 17,615 haDima6 January 2019 · 13 days · 32 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Dima fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 11 January 2022 and 11 January 2022: 1 day 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 2,241 hectares (22.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Dima (2,258 ha, 0.3 %).
- 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.