How long did the Gurafereda fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 1 January 2017 and 24 January 2017: 24 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 15,140 hectares (151.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 2 municipalities: Gurafereda (15,214 ha, 6.1 %); Dima (31 ha, 0.0 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 36.7 °C, humidity dropped to 21 % and gusts hit 32 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 34, 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.

ET · Ethiopia · 2017-01-01 → 2017-01-24

Gurafereda fire, 1 January 2017 Gurafereda, Dima

Out · last detection 24 Jan 2017, 22:52 UTC

The fire started on 1 January 2017 in Gurafereda, Ethiopia, and satellites saw it burning for 24 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 15,140 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 6th largest in SNNPR since 2016 (of 186 with a page). Number 5 in Ethiopia in 2017, of 266.

Burnt area: 15,140ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 24days; 1 Jan 2017 – 24 Jan 2017
Municipalities hit: 2; districts
Started on: 1 Jan; 2017
Heat detections: 559; in a single hotspot: 58 MW
Danger at start: 13; Moderate · FWI index
Energy released: 3.6GW; sum of detected power

Play back 24 Jan 2017

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 1 Jan24 Jan

How it evolved, day by day

123456789101112131415161718192021222324

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

32km/h · peak gust

21%lowest humidity

It had gone 14 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.5 mm on 30 Jan.

This area had burned before

29% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 4,395 ha in 2016.

1,812 ha Gurafereda fire, February 2016 2,507 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire

What happened to each town

Gurafereda where it started

15,214 ha reached on 31 Dec

6.1 %
Dima

31 ha reached on 20 Jan

0.0 %

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)
31 Dec	33.3 °C	37 %	22 km/h	0.7 mm	Moderate 13
1 Jan	33.0 °C	34 %	25 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 15
2 Jan	34.2 °C	29 %	23 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 17
3 Jan	34.2 °C	30 %	22 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 18
4 Jan	34.4 °C	26 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 20
5 Jan	33.6 °C	27 %	18 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 20
6 Jan	34.5 °C	25 %	20 km/h	0.0 mm	Moderate 21
7 Jan	34.2 °C	26 %	22 km/h	0.0 mm	High 22
8 Jan	34.9 °C	22 %	20 km/h	0.0 mm	High 24
9 Jan	35.1 °C	23 %	20 km/h	0.0 mm	High 24
10 Jan	34.3 °C	24 %	23 km/h	0.0 mm	High 24
11 Jan	35.0 °C	25 %	23 km/h	0.0 mm	High 25
12 Jan	34.4 °C	24 %	25 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
13 Jan	35.2 °C	22 %	22 km/h	0.0 mm	High 26
14 Jan	35.6 °C	22 %	20 km/h	0.0 mm	High 27
15 Jan	36.0 °C	22 %	19 km/h	0.0 mm	High 27
16 Jan	36.7 °C	21 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
17 Jan	35.9 °C	23 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
18 Jan	35.4 °C	23 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
19 Jan	35.8 °C	23 %	23 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
20 Jan	34.9 °C	24 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
21 Jan	35.5 °C	25 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31
22 Jan	36.7 °C	26 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
23 Jan	36.6 °C	26 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
24 Jan	36.0 °C	27 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
25 Jan after	35.4 °C	24 %	25 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
26 Jan after	35.0 °C	28 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
27 Jan after	36.2 °C	28 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	High 33
28 Jan after	35.2 °C	26 %	22 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
29 Jan after	34.7 °C	32 %	29 km/h	0.8 mm	High 24
30 Jan after	34.4 °C	37 %	20 km/h	1.5 mm	Moderate 15

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 25 Dec 2016

After · 31 Jan 2017

Before After

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 · 559Every 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 time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Ethiopia ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Gurafereda fire last?: GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 1 January 2017 and 24 January 2017: 24 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 15,140 hectares (151.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 2 municipalities: Gurafereda (15,214 ha, 6.1 %); Dima (31 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 36.7 °C, humidity dropped to 21 % and gusts hit 32 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 34, 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

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

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.

Where it burned