Skip to content
worldfires
ET · Ethiopia · →

Gewane fire, December 2020 Bure Mudaytu, Gewane

Out · last detection 11 Dec 2020, 10:47 UTC

The fire started on 4 December 2020 in Gewane, Ethiopia, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,441 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

Number 25 in Ethiopia in 2020, of 177.

Burnt area
6,441ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
8days
4 Dec 2020 – 11 Dec 2020
Municipalities hit
2
districts
Started on
4 Dec
2020
Heat detections
187
in a single hotspot: 97 MW
Danger at start
31
High · FWI index
Energy released
2.1GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

11 Dec 2020
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 4 Dec11 Dec

How it evolved, day by day

4567891011

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

The weather it burned in

36°high
38km/h · peak gust
19%lowest humidity

It had gone 5 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.2 mm on 21 Dec.

This area had burned before

59% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 3,776 ha in 2019.

What happened to each town

  1. Bure Mudaytu
    5,160 ha reached on 5 Dec
    4.6 %
  2. Gewane where it started
    1,317 ha reached on 4 Dec
    0.2 %

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)
4 Dec 34.0 °C 26 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
5 Dec 35.5 °C 28 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
6 Dec 34.2 °C 28 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
7 Dec 34.7 °C 32 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
8 Dec 33.0 °C 38 % 34 km/h 0.4 mm High 31
9 Dec 34.5 °C 20 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
10 Dec 35.0 °C 19 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
11 Dec 35.6 °C 21 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
12 Dec after 32.8 °C 21 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
13 Dec after 34.5 °C 23 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
14 Dec after 34.5 °C 15 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
15 Dec after 34.5 °C 13 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
16 Dec after 34.4 °C 14 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
17 Dec after 33.3 °C 19 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
18 Dec after 34.2 °C 18 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
19 Dec after 33.9 °C 26 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
20 Dec after 33.2 °C 33 % 32 km/h 0.1 mm High 36
21 Dec after 30.5 °C 41 % 31 km/h 1.2 mm Moderate 19

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 27 Nov 2020
After · 18 Dec 2020

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 · 187Every 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 Gewane fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 4 December 2020 and 11 December 2020: 8 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 6,441 hectares (64.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Bure Mudaytu (5,160 ha, 4.6 %); Gewane (1,317 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 35.6 °C, humidity dropped to 19 % and gusts hit 38 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 37, class 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
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.