Jore fire, 4 March 2026 Jore
The fire started on 4 March 2026 in Jore, Ethiopia, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,130 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 171th largest in Gambela since 2016 (of 611 with a page). Number 44 in Ethiopia in 2026, of 190.
- Burnt area
- 4,130ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 4days
- 4 Mar 2026 – 7 Mar 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- districts
- Started on
- 4 Mar
- 2026
- Heat detections
- 84
- in a single hotspot: 64 MW
- Danger at start
- 57
- Extreme · FWI index
- Energy released
- 795MW
- sum of detected power
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.8 mm on 17 Mar.
This area had burned before
98% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,932 ha in 2016, 154 ha in 2018, 1,692 ha in 2019, 62 ha in 2020, 156 ha in 2021, 1,517 ha in 2022, 3,010 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 4,052 ha that had burned before.
- 3,010 ha Jore fire, February 2023 4,121 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,467 ha Jore fire, February 2022 2,387 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,232 ha Jore fire, December 2016 2,293 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 485 ha Jore fire, December 2016 30,249 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 156 ha Jore fire, February 2021 3,481 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 62 ha Jore fire, April 2020 2,300 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 3 ha Jore fire, January 2019 3,919 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
Jore where it started4,154 ha reached on 3 Mar1.2 %
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 | 37.7 °C | 8 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 57 |
| 5 Mar | 37.0 °C | 7 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 55 |
| 6 Mar | 37.2 °C | 12 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 7 Mar | 38.7 °C | 13 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 8 Mar after | 39.3 °C | 15 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 9 Mar after | 39.8 °C | 8 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 10 Mar after | 38.6 °C | 13 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 11 Mar after | 37.9 °C | 25 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 12 Mar after | 39.8 °C | 22 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 13 Mar after | 39.6 °C | 20 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 14 Mar after | 39.9 °C | 23 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 15 Mar after | 39.2 °C | 24 % | 47 km/h | 0.2 mm | Extreme 59 |
| 16 Mar after | 39.4 °C | 23 % | 48 km/h | 0.1 mm | Extreme 60 |
| 17 Mar after | 37.5 °C | 27 % | 30 km/h | 1.8 mm | High 30 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
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 · CopernicusOn 5 March 2026 the air beside the fire reached 162 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 83: 5.5 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
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 · 84Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 30,249 haJore27 December 2016 · 23 days · 6 km away
- 64,789 haJore21 December 2016 · 42 days · 13 km away
- 76,225 haJoreFebruary 2026 · 35 days · 18 km away
- 201,499 haJoreJanuary 2022 · 78 days · 19 km away
- 23,559 haJore4 January 2019 · 21 days · 20 km away
- 47,727 haJore2 February 2021 · 36 days · 28 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Jore fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 4 March 2026 and 7 March 2026: 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 4,130 hectares (41.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Jore (4,154 ha, 1.2 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 38.7 °C, humidity dropped to 7 % and gusts hit 30 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 57, 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.
Report an error
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.