Gidami fire, February 2022 Gidami
The fire started on 19 February 2022 in Gidami, Ethiopia, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,914 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 119th largest in Oromia since 2016 (of 264 with a page). Number 56 in Ethiopia in 2022, of 135.
The power measured by the satellite is low (12.9 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.
Compare with…
Suggestions: Gidami · 2016Gidami · 2021Gidami · 2020Gidami · 2017
- Burnt area
- 2,914ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 2days
- 19 Feb 2022 – 20 Feb 2022
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- districts
- Started on
- 19 Feb
- 2022
- Heat detections
- 71
- in a single hotspot: 13 MW
- Danger at start
- 51
- Extreme · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 164MW
- detected power per day, on average
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.
This area had burned before
97% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,857 ha in 2016, 1,232 ha in 2017, 927 ha in 2018, 861 ha in 2019, 1,332 ha in 2020, 2,231 ha in 2021. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,829 ha that had burned before.
- 1,826 ha Gidami fire, January 2016 6,318 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,419 ha Gidami fire, January 2021 6,561 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,332 ha Gidami fire, March 2020 3,477 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,232 ha Gidami fire, January 2017 3,980 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 224 ha Gidami fire, January 2018 4,652 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 75 ha Gidami fire, January 2019 2,434 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2 ha Gidami fire, December 2018 3,171 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
How big is it?
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Paris boundary: geoBoundaries · Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière (IGN-F) (Etalab Open License 2.0).
Madrid boundary: geoBoundaries · Open Data ESRI, IGN Central Registry of Cartography Area (CC BY 4.0).
Berlin boundary: geoBoundaries · Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy (dl-de/by-2-0).
This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.
What happened to each town
-
Gidami where it started2,932 ha reached on 16 Feb1.5 %
Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance runs from the point marking the centre of each area 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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 19 Feb | 39.4 °C | 10 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 20 Feb | 38.6 °C | 7 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 21 Feb after | 37.3 °C | 10 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 22 Feb after | 37.4 °C | 12 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 23 Feb after | 38.8 °C | 11 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 24 Feb after | 38.6 °C | 12 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 25 Feb after | 37.7 °C | 15 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 26 Feb after | 37.9 °C | 18 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 27 Feb after | 39.2 °C | 17 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 28 Feb after | 38.5 °C | 17 % | 34 km/h | 0.3 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 1 Mar after | 34.8 °C | 31 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 2 Mar after | 38.9 °C | 22 % | 22 km/h | 0.1 mm | Very high 39 |
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.
Detections table · 71Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 6,807 haGidami8 January 2019 · 6 days · 11 km away
- 9,271 haGidami11 January 2026 · 7 days · 12 km away
- 8,775 haItang24 December 2025 · 19 days · 23 km away
- 12,702 haMaokomo SpecialFebruary 2021 · 12 days · 32 km away
- 7,575 haMaiwut7 February 2021 · 10 days · 35 km away
- 7,866 haMaiwut1 January 2026 · 15 days · 37 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Gidami fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 19 February 2022 and 20 February 2022: 2 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 2,914 hectares (29.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Gidami (2,932 ha, 1.5 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 39.4 °C, humidity dropped to 7 % and gusts hit 34 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 54, 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
History of this page Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
No changes since 24 October 2026.
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
How we know this
- Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery.
- Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 71 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
- We have not matched this page with any official record.
- Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
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.