How long did the Jore fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 14 March 2018 and 17 March 2018: 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 2,719 hectares (27.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Jore (2,736 ha, 0.8 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 38.3 °C, humidity dropped to 28 % and gusts hit 48 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 38, 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.

ET · Ethiopia · 2018-03-14 → 2018-03-17

Jore fire, 14 March 2018 Jore

Out · last detection 17 Mar 2018, 11:37 UTC

The fire started on 14 March 2018 in Jore, Ethiopia, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,719 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 372th largest in Gambela since 2016 (of 611 with a page). Number 47 in Ethiopia in 2018, of 96.

Burnt area: 2,719ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 4days; 14 Mar 2018 – 17 Mar 2018
Municipalities hit: 1; districts
Started on: 14 Mar; 2018
Heat detections: 87; in a single hotspot: 80 MW
Danger at start: 30; High · FWI index
Energy released: 1.2GW; sum of detected power

Play back 17 Mar 2018

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 14 Mar17 Mar

How it evolved, day by day

141517

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

48km/h · peak gust

28%lowest humidity

It had gone 17 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.1 mm on 21 Mar.

This area had burned before

70% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 32 ha in 2016, 1,900 ha in 2017.

What happened to each town

Jore where it started

2,736 ha reached on 14 Mar

0.8 %

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)
14 Mar	37.2 °C	30 %	32 km/h	1.1 mm	High 30
15 Mar	38.3 °C	28 %	48 km/h	1.2 mm	Very high 38
16 Mar	36.8 °C	30 %	33 km/h	0.4 mm	High 38
17 Mar	37.3 °C	28 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	High 38
18 Mar after	37.8 °C	26 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
19 Mar after	36.5 °C	35 %	40 km/h	0.3 mm	Very high 41
20 Mar after	37.6 °C	27 %	39 km/h	0.1 mm	Very high 42
21 Mar after	37.6 °C	33 %	36 km/h	2.1 mm	High 26

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 7 Mar 2018

After · 24 Mar 2018

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 · 87Every 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 Jore fire last?: GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 14 March 2018 and 17 March 2018: 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 2,719 hectares (27.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Jore (2,736 ha, 0.8 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 38.3 °C, humidity dropped to 28 % and gusts hit 48 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 38, 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

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