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Guba fire, 19 November 2017 Guba

Out · last detection 30 Nov 2017, 10:04 UTC

The fire started on 19 November 2017 in Guba, Ethiopia, and satellites saw it burning for 12 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 9,347 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 41th largest in Beneshangul Gumu since 2016 (of 699 with a page). Number 14 in Ethiopia in 2017, of 266.

Burnt area
9,347ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
12days
19 Nov 2017 – 30 Nov 2017
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
19 Nov
2017
Heat detections
302
in a single hotspot: 64 MW
Danger at start
38
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
1.1GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

30 Nov 2017
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 19 Nov30 Nov

How it evolved, day by day

192021222324252627282930

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
34km/h · peak gust
12%lowest humidity

It had gone 15 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

35% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 3,277 ha in 2016.

What happened to each town

  1. Guba where it started
    9,408 ha reached on 19 Nov
    1.4 %

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)
19 Nov 37.5 °C 12 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
20 Nov 37.3 °C 12 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
21 Nov 36.0 °C 15 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
22 Nov 35.2 °C 17 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
23 Nov 35.0 °C 18 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
24 Nov 35.7 °C 20 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
25 Nov 35.7 °C 20 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
26 Nov 35.4 °C 20 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
27 Nov 35.8 °C 20 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
28 Nov 36.7 °C 18 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
29 Nov 36.9 °C 19 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
30 Nov 37.1 °C 18 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
1 Dec after 36.2 °C 20 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
2 Dec after 35.7 °C 22 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
3 Dec after 36.6 °C 19 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
4 Dec after 37.4 °C 16 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
5 Dec after 37.2 °C 14 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
6 Dec after 37.0 °C 14 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
7 Dec after 36.6 °C 13 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
8 Dec after 36.7 °C 13 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
9 Dec after 37.2 °C 15 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
10 Dec after 37.0 °C 11 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
11 Dec after 37.6 °C 11 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
12 Dec after 37.7 °C 11 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
13 Dec after 37.1 °C 11 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
14 Dec after 36.3 °C 11 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
15 Dec after 35.7 °C 14 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
16 Dec after 36.7 °C 12 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 12 Nov 2017
After · 7 Dec 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 · 302Every 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 19 November 2017 and 30 November 2017: 12 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 9,347 hectares (93.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Guba (9,408 ha, 1.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.5 °C, humidity dropped to 12 % and gusts hit 34 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 47, 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.