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Guduru fire, January 2017 Guduru, Jimma Genete

Out · last detection 13 Jan 2017, 10:22 UTC

The fire started on 9 January 2017 in Guduru, Ethiopia, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,917 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 118th largest in Oromia since 2016 (of 264 with a page). Number 147 in Ethiopia in 2017, of 266.

Burnt area
2,917ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
5days
9 Jan 2017 – 13 Jan 2017
Municipalities hit
2
districts
Started on
9 Jan
2017
Heat detections
72
in a single hotspot: 114 MW
Danger at start
29
High · FWI index
Energy released
1.6GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

13 Jan 2017
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 9 Jan13 Jan

How it evolved, day by day

910111213

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

The weather it burned in

25°high
25km/h · peak gust
11%lowest humidity

It had gone 41 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

4% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 117 ha in 2016.

What happened to each town

  1. Guduru where it started
    2,783 ha reached on 9 Jan
    1.9 %
  2. Jimma Genete
    151 ha reached on 11 Jan
    0.3 %

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)
9 Jan 25.0 °C 17 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
10 Jan 25.1 °C 14 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
11 Jan 24.5 °C 11 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
12 Jan 24.4 °C 16 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
13 Jan 24.9 °C 17 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
14 Jan after 25.6 °C 15 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
15 Jan after 25.7 °C 22 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
16 Jan after 26.4 °C 21 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
17 Jan after 26.2 °C 17 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
18 Jan after 25.8 °C 12 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
19 Jan after 26.0 °C 21 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
20 Jan after 24.9 °C 23 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
21 Jan after 25.9 °C 25 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
22 Jan after 26.9 °C 26 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
23 Jan after 27.0 °C 23 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 28

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 2 Jan 2017
After · 20 Jan 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 · 72Every 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 Guduru fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 9 January 2017 and 13 January 2017: 5 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 2,917 hectares (29.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Guduru (2,783 ha, 1.9 %); Jimma Genete (151 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 25.1 °C, humidity dropped to 11 % and gusts hit 25 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 32, 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.