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Guangua fire, March 2016 Mandura, Dibat, Guangua

Out · last detection 10 Mar 2016, 10:17 UTC

The fire started on 6 March 2016 in Guangua, Ethiopia, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,738 hectares from heat detections, spread across 3 municipalities.

It is the 33th largest in Amhara since 2016 (of 171 with a page). Number 48 in Ethiopia in 2016, of 309.

Burnt area
5,738ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
5days
6 Mar 2016 – 10 Mar 2016
Municipalities hit
3
districts
Started on
6 Mar
2016
Heat detections
150
in a single hotspot: 74 MW
Danger at start
49
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
2.4GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

10 Mar 2016
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 6 Mar10 Mar

How it evolved, day by day

678910

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
35km/h · peak gust
5%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months 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. Mandura
    4,550 ha reached on 6 Mar
    4.2 %
  2. Dibat
    680 ha reached on 6 Mar
    0.3 %
  3. Guangua where it started
    543 ha reached on 6 Mar
    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)
6 Mar 37.2 °C 14 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
7 Mar 37.0 °C 9 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
8 Mar 37.1 °C 7 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
9 Mar 38.8 °C 5 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
10 Mar 37.0 °C 8 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
11 Mar after 37.7 °C 15 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
12 Mar after 37.5 °C 14 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
13 Mar after 37.9 °C 15 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
14 Mar after 36.0 °C 24 % 42 km/h 0.2 mm Extreme 53
15 Mar after 36.2 °C 21 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
16 Mar after 36.7 °C 19 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
17 Mar after 35.3 °C 20 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
18 Mar after 35.6 °C 20 % 29 km/h 0.5 mm Very high 46
19 Mar after 35.0 °C 22 % 45 km/h 0.2 mm Very high 48
20 Mar after 36.9 °C 18 % 28 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 · 28 Feb 2016
After · 17 Mar 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 · 150Every 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 Guangua fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 6 March 2016 and 10 March 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 5,738 hectares (57.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 3 municipalities: Mandura (4,550 ha, 4.2 %); Dibat (680 ha, 0.3 %); Guangua (543 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 38.8 °C, humidity dropped to 5 % and gusts hit 35 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 60, 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.