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Jore fire, 4 March 2016 Jore

Out · last detection 7 Mar 2016, 11:13 UTC

The fire started on 4 March 2016 in Jore, Ethiopia, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,627 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 218th largest in Gambela since 2016 (of 611 with a page). Number 106 in Ethiopia in 2016, of 309.

Burnt area
3,627ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
4days
4 Mar 2016 – 7 Mar 2016
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
4 Mar
2016
Heat detections
95
in a single hotspot: 198 MW
Danger at start
46
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
2.6GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

7 Mar 2016
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 4 Mar7 Mar

How it evolved, day by day

457

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

The weather it burned in

42°high
38km/h · peak gust
15%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

What happened to each town

  1. Jore where it started
    3,650 ha reached on 27 Feb
    1.1 %

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)
4 Mar 41.5 °C 21 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
5 Mar 42.3 °C 18 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
6 Mar 41.4 °C 18 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
7 Mar 42.4 °C 15 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
8 Mar after 42.1 °C 15 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
9 Mar after 39.5 °C 28 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
10 Mar after 40.5 °C 23 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
11 Mar after 41.7 °C 23 % 38 km/h 0.8 mm Very high 47
12 Mar after 42.3 °C 21 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
13 Mar after 41.2 °C 22 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
14 Mar after 38.7 °C 24 % 36 km/h 0.1 mm Extreme 50
15 Mar after 40.7 °C 24 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
16 Mar after 39.5 °C 25 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
17 Mar after 40.1 °C 22 % 35 km/h 0.1 mm Very high 50

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 26 Feb 2016
After · 14 Mar 2016

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 · 95Every 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 Jore fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 4 March 2016 and 7 March 2016: 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 3,627 hectares (36.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Jore (3,650 ha, 1.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 42.4 °C, humidity dropped to 15 % and gusts hit 38 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 53, class Extreme.
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.