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Itang fire, 17 December 2025 Itang

Out · last detection 18 Jan 2026, 11:43 UTC

The fire started on 17 December 2025 in Itang, Ethiopia, and satellites saw it burning for 33 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 8,775 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 64th largest in Gambela since 2016 (of 611 with a page). Number 10 in Ethiopia in 2025, of 127.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Anfilo · 2016Gidami · 2021Gidami · 2016Gidami · 2019

Burnt area
8,775ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
33days
17 Dec 2025 – 18 Jan 2026
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
17 Dec
2025
Heat detections
285
in a single hotspot: 54 MW
Danger at start
33
High · FWI index
Average daily power
73MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 17 Dec18 Jan
18 Jan 2026

How it evolved, day by day

17 Dec 2025 · 29 MW · 4 18 Dec 2025 · 20 MW · 2 19 Dec 2025 · 3 MW · 1 20 Dec 2025 · 36 MW · 6 21 Dec 2025 · 33 MW · 5 22 Dec 2025 · 7 MW · 3 24 Dec 2025 · 147 MW · 19 25 Dec 2025 · 421 MW · 25 26 Dec 2025 · 151 MW · 21 27 Dec 2025 · 99 MW · 14 28 Dec 2025 · 254 MW · 24 29 Dec 2025 · 155 MW · 17 30 Dec 2025 · 104 MW · 23 1 Jan 2026 · 36 MW · 5 2 Jan 2026 · 55 MW · 13 3 Jan 2026 · 82 MW · 14 4 Jan 2026 · 146 MW · 11 5 Jan 2026 · 37 MW · 6 6 Jan 2026 · 65 MW · 6 7 Jan 2026 · 81 MW · 8 8 Jan 2026 · 59 MW · 9 9 Jan 2026 · 69 MW · 16 10 Jan 2026 · 14 MW · 4 11 Jan 2026 · 14 MW · 4 12 Jan 2026 · 21 MW · 3 13 Jan 2026 · 15 MW · 3 14 Jan 2026 · 6 MW · 3 15 Jan 2026 · 25 MW · 5 16 Jan 2026 · 57 MW · 3 17 Jan 2026 · 1 MW · 2 18 Jan 2026 · 17 MW · 6
17 Dec 22 Dec 25 Dec 28 Dec 3 Jan 8 Jan 13 Jan 18 Jan

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

The weather it burned in

38°high
28km/h · peak gust
16%lowest humidity

It had gone 29 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

40% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 857 ha in 2016, 375 ha in 2017, 995 ha in 2020, 43 ha in 2023, 1,620 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 3,531 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 5.5% of the area of London (88 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each town

  1. Itang where it started
    8,836 ha reached on 17 Dec
    4.0 %

Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance runs from the point marking the centre of each area to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.

People and buildings inside the perimeter

GHSL 2025
Built-up area0.19 ha
Residents≈ 60

Inside the perimeter there were about 0.19 hectares of built-up land and about 60 residents (GHSL 2025, satellite-based estimate).

This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned. The GHSL 2025 epoch is a projection made from 2020 and earlier data.

Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu

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)
17 Dec 34.4 °C 30 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
18 Dec 33.4 °C 23 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
19 Dec 35.1 °C 31 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
20 Dec 35.0 °C 30 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
21 Dec 34.9 °C 28 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
22 Dec 34.4 °C 30 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
23 Dec 35.2 °C 28 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
24 Dec 37.0 °C 28 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
25 Dec 37.2 °C 23 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
26 Dec 37.0 °C 19 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
27 Dec 37.7 °C 20 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
28 Dec 37.9 °C 19 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
29 Dec 35.5 °C 25 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
30 Dec 35.0 °C 25 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
31 Dec 36.2 °C 26 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
1 Jan 35.4 °C 23 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
2 Jan 34.9 °C 20 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
3 Jan 36.9 °C 21 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
4 Jan 36.5 °C 21 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
5 Jan 37.1 °C 17 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
6 Jan 37.8 °C 21 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
7 Jan 36.5 °C 25 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
8 Jan 37.8 °C 18 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
9 Jan 37.7 °C 20 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
10 Jan 37.2 °C 16 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
11 Jan 37.1 °C 23 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
12 Jan 37.3 °C 22 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
13 Jan 36.4 °C 24 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
14 Jan 37.0 °C 20 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
15 Jan 36.3 °C 24 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
16 Jan 34.4 °C 24 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
17 Jan 35.9 °C 22 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
18 Jan 37.1 °C 22 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
19 Jan after 37.0 °C 23 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
20 Jan after 38.1 °C 24 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
21 Jan after 38.0 °C 23 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
22 Jan after 37.6 °C 22 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
23 Jan after 38.5 °C 14 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
24 Jan after 39.4 °C 16 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
25 Jan after 40.2 °C 14 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
26 Jan after 40.0 °C 11 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
27 Jan after 39.4 °C 16 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
28 Jan after 37.6 °C 22 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 10 Dec 2025
After · 25 Jan 2026

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 · Copernicus

On 11 January 2026 the air beside the fire reached 61 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 49: 3.3 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak61 µg/m³
Days over the guideline24 days
PM1063 µg/m³
Optical depth0.78
222324252627282930311234567891011121314
Good Fair Moderate Poor Very poor Extremely poor

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 · 285Every 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 Itang fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 17 December 2025 to 18 January 2026 (33 days). The perimeter dates it from 24 December 2025 to 11 January 2026.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 8,775 hectares (87.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Itang (8,836 ha, 4.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.9 °C, humidity dropped to 16 % and gusts hit 28 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 44, 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

History of this page · 2 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
  1. Last day with fire: 11 January 2026 → 18 January 2026.
  2. Start date: 24 December 2025 → 17 December 2025.

RSS Changes to this page

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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How we know this
  • Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery; 2 polygons grouped in this page.
  • Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 24 December 2025 to 11 January 2026. 285 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
  • We have not matched this page with any official record.
  • Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
  • Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2025, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.

How we build fire pages: methodology ›

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.