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Gidami fire, March 2020 Gidami

Out · last detection 25 Mar 2020, 10:40 UTC

The fire started on 22 March 2020 in Gidami, Ethiopia, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,477 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 84th largest in Oromia since 2016 (of 264 with a page). Number 63 in Ethiopia in 2020, of 177.

The power measured by the satellite is low (19.4 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
3,477ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
4days
22 Mar 2020 – 25 Mar 2020
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
22 Mar
2020
Heat detections
63
in a single hotspot: 19 MW
Danger at start
35
High · FWI index
Energy released
353MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

25 Mar 2020
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 22 Mar25 Mar

How it evolved, day by day

22232425

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

The weather it burned in

38°high
26km/h · peak gust
16%lowest humidity

It had gone 8 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

95% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,772 ha in 2016, 2,595 ha in 2017, 384 ha in 2018, 1,570 ha in 2019. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 3,299 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Gidami where it started
    3,498 ha reached on 22 Mar
    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)
22 Mar 37.2 °C 21 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
23 Mar 36.8 °C 22 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
24 Mar 37.1 °C 22 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
25 Mar 38.0 °C 16 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
26 Mar after 38.4 °C 16 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
27 Mar after 39.2 °C 15 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
28 Mar after 38.0 °C 22 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
29 Mar after 37.5 °C 25 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
30 Mar after 37.7 °C 19 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
31 Mar after 39.4 °C 18 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
1 Apr after 39.3 °C 18 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
2 Apr after 38.3 °C 20 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
3 Apr after 38.4 °C 23 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
4 Apr after 36.5 °C 30 % 25 km/h 0.6 mm High 34

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 15 Mar 2020
After · 1 Apr 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 · 63Every 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 22 March 2020 and 25 March 2020: 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 3,477 hectares (34.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Gidami (3,498 ha, 1.8 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 38.0 °C, humidity dropped to 16 % and gusts hit 26 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 40, class Very 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.

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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.