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Guba fire, 26 November 2019 Guba

Out · last detection 6 Dec 2019, 11:44 UTC

The fire started on 26 November 2019 in Guba, Ethiopia, and satellites saw it burning for 10 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,861 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 360th largest in Beneshangul Gumu since 2016 (of 699 with a page). Number 120 in Ethiopia in 2019, of 220.

Burnt area
2,861ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
10days
26 Nov 2019 – 5 Dec 2019
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
26 Nov
2019
Heat detections
93
in a single hotspot: 45 MW
Danger at start
23
High · FWI index
Energy released
676MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

6 Dec 2019
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 26 Nov5 Dec

How it evolved, day by day

282930356

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

The weather it burned in

37°high
34km/h · peak gust
17%lowest humidity

It had gone 20 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

65% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,202 ha in 2016, 1,103 ha in 2017, 803 ha in 2018. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,854 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Guba where it started
    2,880 ha reached on 21 Nov
    0.4 %

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)
26 Nov 34.8 °C 31 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
27 Nov 34.1 °C 30 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
28 Nov 36.4 °C 22 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
29 Nov 36.3 °C 19 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
30 Nov 36.7 °C 20 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
1 Dec 36.3 °C 21 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
2 Dec 36.3 °C 20 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
3 Dec 35.9 °C 19 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
4 Dec 35.7 °C 17 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
5 Dec 36.0 °C 20 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
6 Dec after 36.7 °C 23 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
7 Dec after 35.4 °C 23 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
8 Dec after 35.8 °C 25 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
9 Dec after 36.3 °C 27 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
10 Dec after 36.6 °C 22 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
11 Dec after 37.1 °C 18 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
12 Dec after 34.6 °C 33 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
13 Dec after 35.6 °C 31 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
14 Dec after 36.2 °C 22 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
15 Dec after 36.4 °C 28 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 33

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 19 Nov 2019
After · 12 Dec 2019

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 26 November 2019 and 5 December 2019: 10 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 2,861 hectares (28.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Guba (2,880 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.7 °C, humidity dropped to 17 % and gusts hit 34 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 35, class 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.