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ET · Ethiopia · →

Guba fire, 2 December 2023 Guba

Out · last detection 6 Dec 2023, 22:45 UTC

The fire started on 2 December 2023 in Guba, Ethiopia, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,781 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 204th largest in Beneshangul Gumu since 2016 (of 699 with a page). Number 25 in Ethiopia in 2023, of 101.

Burnt area
3,781ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
4days
2 Dec 2023 – 5 Dec 2023
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
2 Dec
2023
Heat detections
126
in a single hotspot: 165 MW
Danger at start
45
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
1.0GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

6 Dec 2023
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 2 Dec5 Dec

How it evolved, day by day

23456

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
32km/h · peak gust
14%lowest humidity

It had gone 27 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

90% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,583 ha in 2016, 210 ha in 2017, 1,422 ha in 2019, 1,433 ha in 2020, 2,339 ha in 2021, 316 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 3,408 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Guba where it started
    3,806 ha reached on 1 Dec
    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)
2 Dec 38.6 °C 16 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
3 Dec 38.8 °C 18 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
4 Dec 39.2 °C 14 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
5 Dec 38.4 °C 18 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
6 Dec after 37.5 °C 16 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
7 Dec after 37.4 °C 12 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
8 Dec after 36.4 °C 13 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
9 Dec after 36.4 °C 11 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
10 Dec after 38.0 °C 13 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
11 Dec after 37.0 °C 11 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
12 Dec after 36.8 °C 12 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
13 Dec after 34.9 °C 10 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
14 Dec after 35.1 °C 12 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
15 Dec after 36.8 °C 15 % 20 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 · 25 Nov 2023
After · 12 Dec 2023

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 · 126Every 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 2 December 2023 and 5 December 2023: 4 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 3,781 hectares (37.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Guba (3,806 ha, 0.5 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 39.2 °C, humidity dropped to 14 % and gusts hit 32 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 45, 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.