Dima fire, 26 February 2025 Dima
The fire started on 26 February 2025 in Dima, Ethiopia, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,189 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 277th largest in Gambela since 2016 (of 611 with a page). Number 51 in Ethiopia in 2025, of 127.
- Burnt area
- 3,189ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 4days
- 26 Feb 2025 – 1 Mar 2025
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- districts
- Started on
- 26 Feb
- 2025
- Heat detections
- 119
- in a single hotspot: 72 MW
- Danger at start
- 47
- Very high · FWI index
- Energy released
- 1.6GW
- 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 more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 3.8 mm on 9 Mar.
This area had burned before
94% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,347 ha in 2016, 192 ha in 2017, 277 ha in 2018, 2,034 ha in 2019, 884 ha in 2021, 1,025 ha in 2022, 4 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,996 ha that had burned before.
- 2,150 ha Dima fire, December 2016 48,364 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,034 ha Dima fire, January 2019 17,615 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 277 ha Dima fire, January 2018 4,513 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 4 ha Dima fire, February 2023 2,835 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
Dima where it started3,213 ha reached on 25 Feb0.4 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 26 Feb | 39.9 °C | 19 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 27 Feb | 40.3 °C | 16 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 28 Feb | 40.4 °C | 21 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 1 Mar | 40.1 °C | 20 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 2 Mar after | 39.7 °C | 21 % | 29 km/h | 0.1 mm | Very high 47 |
| 3 Mar after | 39.0 °C | 26 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 4 Mar after | 37.4 °C | 27 % | 19 km/h | 0.6 mm | High 36 |
| 5 Mar after | 39.2 °C | 24 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 6 Mar after | 39.4 °C | 23 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 7 Mar after | 38.0 °C | 27 % | 19 km/h | 0.4 mm | Very high 39 |
| 8 Mar after | 38.9 °C | 24 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 9 Mar after | 38.0 °C | 30 % | 27 km/h | 3.8 mm | Moderate 17 |
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.
The smoke
CAMS · CopernicusOn 1 March 2025 the air beside the fire reached 102 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 71: 4.7 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
Particles from the Copernicus CAMS model at the centre of the perimeter; these are not measurements in each town. The pale bar is the worst hour, the solid one the daily average.
Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS)
Detections table · 119Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 48,364 haDima31 December 2016 · 23 days · 2 km away
- 17,615 haDima6 January 2019 · 13 days · 10 km away
- 20,169 haDima8 January 2019 · 15 days · 16 km away
- 15,631 haDima11 February 2023 · 5 days · 31 km away
- 15,140 haGurafereda1 January 2017 · 24 days · 38 km away
- 18,648 haDima14 February 2023 · 6 days · 40 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Dima fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 26 February 2025 and 1 March 2025: 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 3,189 hectares (31.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Dima (3,213 ha, 0.4 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 40.4 °C, humidity dropped to 16 % and gusts hit 29 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 52, 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
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.