Skip to content
worldfires
ET · Ethiopia · →

Dima fire, 5 March 2022 Dima, Gog

Out · last detection 7 Mar 2022, 22:27 UTC

The fire started on 5 March 2022 in Dima, Ethiopia, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,010 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 311th largest in Gambela since 2016 (of 611 with a page). Number 53 in Ethiopia in 2022, of 135.

Burnt area
3,010ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
4days
5 Mar 2022 – 8 Mar 2022
Municipalities hit
2
districts
Started on
5 Mar
2022
Heat detections
59
in a single hotspot: 44 MW
Danger at start
44
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
623MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

7 Mar 2022
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 5 Mar8 Mar

How it evolved, day by day

567

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

The weather it burned in

42°high
36km/h · peak gust
17%lowest humidity

It had gone 46 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

99% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,208 ha in 2016, 1,342 ha in 2017, 1,676 ha in 2018, 1,153 ha in 2019, 62 ha in 2020, 1,024 ha in 2021. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,982 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Dima where it started
    3,033 ha reached on 5 Mar
    0.4 %
  2. Gog
    0 ha
    0.0 %

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)
5 Mar 40.4 °C 19 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
6 Mar 39.8 °C 17 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
7 Mar 40.9 °C 19 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
8 Mar 41.8 °C 18 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
9 Mar after 41.1 °C 19 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
10 Mar after 41.3 °C 20 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
11 Mar after 39.9 °C 23 % 35 km/h 0.2 mm Very high 48
12 Mar after 38.2 °C 23 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
13 Mar after 38.3 °C 22 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
14 Mar after 38.7 °C 22 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
15 Mar after 38.6 °C 25 % 28 km/h 0.1 mm Very high 47
16 Mar after 38.4 °C 24 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
17 Mar after 37.5 °C 14 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
18 Mar after 38.3 °C 23 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 26 Feb 2022
After · 15 Mar 2022

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 · 59Every 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 5 March 2022 and 8 March 2022: 4 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 3,010 hectares (30.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Dima (3,033 ha, 0.4 %); Gog (0 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 41.8 °C, humidity dropped to 17 % 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.

Report an error
What do you think is wrong?

We will only use your email to reply about this report. Privacy.

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.