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Guba fire, 16 November 2017 Guba

Out · last detection 22 Nov 2017, 23:29 UTC

The fire started on 16 November 2017 in Guba, Ethiopia, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,566 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 230th largest in Beneshangul Gumu since 2016 (of 699 with a page). Number 100 in Ethiopia in 2017, of 266.

Burnt area
3,566ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
7days
16 Nov 2017 – 22 Nov 2017
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
16 Nov
2017
Heat detections
93
in a single hotspot: 115 MW
Danger at start
33
High · FWI index
Energy released
1.3GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

22 Nov 2017
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 16 Nov22 Nov

How it evolved, day by day

161718192122

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
31km/h · peak gust
13%lowest humidity

It had gone 12 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

5% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 194 ha in 2016.

What happened to each town

  1. Guba where it started
    3,585 ha reached on 16 Nov
    0.5 %

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)
16 Nov 37.9 °C 18 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
17 Nov 37.6 °C 17 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
18 Nov 38.0 °C 15 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
19 Nov 37.9 °C 13 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
20 Nov 37.8 °C 13 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
21 Nov 36.4 °C 16 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
22 Nov 35.7 °C 18 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
23 Nov after 35.6 °C 19 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
24 Nov after 36.4 °C 20 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
25 Nov after 36.4 °C 20 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
26 Nov after 36.0 °C 21 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
27 Nov after 36.4 °C 21 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
28 Nov after 37.3 °C 19 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
29 Nov after 37.4 °C 19 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
30 Nov after 37.7 °C 18 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
1 Dec after 36.9 °C 21 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
2 Dec after 36.3 °C 22 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 9 Nov 2017
After · 29 Nov 2017

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 · 93Every 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 Guba fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 16 November 2017 and 22 November 2017: 7 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 3,566 hectares (35.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Guba (3,585 ha, 0.5 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 38.0 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 31 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 44, 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.