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Gidami fire, 7 January 2018 Gidami

Out · last detection 15 Jan 2018, 10:41 UTC

The fire started on 7 January 2018 in Gidami, Ethiopia, and satellites saw it burning for 9 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,432 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 90th largest in Oromia since 2016 (of 264 with a page). Number 31 in Ethiopia in 2018, of 96.

Burnt area
3,432ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
9days
7 Jan 2018 – 15 Jan 2018
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
7 Jan
2018
Heat detections
143
in a single hotspot: 68 MW
Danger at start
46
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
1.2GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

15 Jan 2018
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 7 Jan15 Jan

How it evolved, day by day

7891011121315

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

The weather it burned in

39°high
36km/h · peak gust
11%lowest humidity

It had gone 54 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

22% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 155 ha in 2016, 589 ha in 2017.

What happened to each town

  1. Gidami where it started
    3,454 ha reached on 4 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)
7 Jan 36.3 °C 13 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
8 Jan 36.9 °C 13 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
9 Jan 36.6 °C 13 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
10 Jan 36.6 °C 15 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
11 Jan 37.4 °C 15 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
12 Jan 38.0 °C 13 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
13 Jan 38.7 °C 12 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
14 Jan 37.9 °C 11 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
15 Jan 37.9 °C 12 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
16 Jan after 37.1 °C 13 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
17 Jan after 37.1 °C 14 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
18 Jan after 37.1 °C 13 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
19 Jan after 37.2 °C 14 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
20 Jan after 36.0 °C 16 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
21 Jan after 36.0 °C 17 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
22 Jan after 37.8 °C 15 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
23 Jan after 37.7 °C 15 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
24 Jan after 36.4 °C 19 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
25 Jan after 36.4 °C 20 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 31 Dec 2017
After · 22 Jan 2018

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 · 143Every 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 7 January 2018 and 15 January 2018: 9 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 3,432 hectares (34.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Gidami (3,454 ha, 1.8 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 38.7 °C, humidity dropped to 11 % 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.

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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.