Guba fire, 15 January 2026 Guba
The fire started on 15 January 2026 in Guba, Ethiopia, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,364 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 263th largest in Beneshangul Gumu since 2016 (of 699 with a page). Number 68 in Ethiopia in 2026, of 190.
- Burnt area
- 3,364ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 4days
- 15 Jan 2026 – 18 Jan 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- districts
- Started on
- 15 Jan
- 2026
- Heat detections
- 77
- in a single hotspot: 63 MW
- Danger at start
- 47
- Very high · FWI index
- Energy released
- 792MW
- sum of detected power
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
100% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,415 ha in 2016, 2,396 ha in 2017, 850 ha in 2018, 1,855 ha in 2019, 1,485 ha in 2020, 485 ha in 2021, 1,311 ha in 2023, 18 ha in 2024, 1,470 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 3,361 ha that had burned before.
- 2,396 ha Guba fire, November 2017 9,347 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,485 ha Guba fire, November 2020 10,361 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,415 ha Guba fire, November 2016 7,224 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,107 ha Guba fire, November 2019 2,861 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 154 ha Guba fire, December 2023 3,781 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 85 ha Guba fire, December 2025 9,195 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 60 ha Guba fire, December 2019 6,514 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
Guba where it started3,386 ha reached on 14 Jan0.5 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 15 Jan | 36.3 °C | 21 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 16 Jan | 35.0 °C | 20 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 17 Jan | 36.1 °C | 17 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 18 Jan | 37.7 °C | 14 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 19 Jan after | 36.9 °C | 13 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 20 Jan after | 39.5 °C | 11 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 21 Jan after | 39.4 °C | 12 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 22 Jan after | 38.7 °C | 12 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 50 |
| 23 Jan after | 38.7 °C | 10 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 24 Jan after | 39.1 °C | 6 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 61 |
| 25 Jan after | 39.1 °C | 7 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 58 |
| 26 Jan after | 38.6 °C | 10 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 60 |
| 27 Jan after | 38.3 °C | 10 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 57 |
| 28 Jan after | 38.2 °C | 12 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 60 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.
The smoke
CAMS · CopernicusOn 15 January 2026 the air beside the fire reached 17 µg/m³ of PM2.5, but no daily average passed the WHO guideline (15).
Particles from the Copernicus CAMS model at the centre of the perimeter; these are not measurements in each town. The pale bar is the worst hour, the solid one the daily average.
Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS)
Detections table · 77Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 10,361 haGuba27 November 2020 · 7 days · 4 km away
- 9,347 haGuba19 November 2017 · 12 days · 8 km away
- 28,159 haQuara22 November 2016 · 15 days · 22 km away
- 11,110 haGuba10 December 2019 · 15 days · 24 km away
- 10,633 haGuba5 December 2017 · 9 days · 24 km away
- 11,948 haGuba16 November 2021 · 8 days · 26 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Guba fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 15 January 2026 and 18 January 2026: 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 3,364 hectares (33.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Guba (3,386 ha, 0.5 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 37.7 °C, humidity dropped to 14 % and gusts hit 29 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 49, 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.
Report an error
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.