Skip to content
worldfires
ET · Ethiopia · →

Gidami fire, 17 January 2016 Gidami

Out · last detection 21 Jan 2016, 23:12 UTC

The fire started on 17 January 2016 in Gidami, Ethiopia, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,459 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 86th largest in Oromia since 2016 (of 264 with a page). Number 114 in Ethiopia in 2016, of 309.

The power measured by the satellite is low (25.6 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
3,459ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
5days
17 Jan 2016 – 21 Jan 2016
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
17 Jan
2016
Heat detections
81
in a single hotspot: 26 MW
Danger at start
26
High · FWI index
Energy released
357MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

21 Jan 2016
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 17 Jan21 Jan

How it evolved, day by day

1718192021

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

The weather it burned in

34°high
33km/h · peak gust
20%lowest humidity

It had gone 38 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

What happened to each town

  1. Gidami where it started
    3,481 ha reached on 16 Jan
    1.8 %

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)
17 Jan 34.2 °C 28 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
18 Jan 33.0 °C 24 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
19 Jan 34.1 °C 21 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
20 Jan 33.9 °C 20 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
21 Jan 33.9 °C 25 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
22 Jan after 33.6 °C 32 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
23 Jan after 34.7 °C 25 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
24 Jan after 34.1 °C 25 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
25 Jan after 35.3 °C 24 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
26 Jan after 34.2 °C 28 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
27 Jan after 32.9 °C 28 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
28 Jan after 32.4 °C 25 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
29 Jan after 31.9 °C 23 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
30 Jan after 33.1 °C 21 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
31 Jan after 33.4 °C 24 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 34

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 10 Jan 2016
After · 28 Jan 2016

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 · 81Every 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 Gidami fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 17 January 2016 and 21 January 2016: 5 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 3,459 hectares (34.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Gidami (3,481 ha, 1.8 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 34.2 °C, humidity dropped to 20 % and gusts hit 33 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 32, 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.