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Kafta Humera fire, October 2019 Kafta Humera

Out · last detection 30 Oct 2019, 11:39 UTC

The fire started on 27 October 2019 in Kafta Humera, Ethiopia, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,818 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 9th largest in Tigray since 2016 (of 21 with a page). Number 124 in Ethiopia in 2019, of 220.

Burnt area
2,818ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
4days
27 Oct 2019 – 30 Oct 2019
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
27 Oct
2019
Heat detections
70
in a single hotspot: 33 MW
Danger at start
16
Moderate · FWI index
Energy released
541MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

30 Oct 2019
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 27 Oct30 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

27282930

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

The weather it burned in

36°high
31km/h · peak gust
23%lowest humidity

It had gone 2 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

24% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 684 ha in 2018.

What happened to each town

  1. Kafta Humera where it started
    2,838 ha reached on 27 Oct
    0.5 %

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)
27 Oct 34.2 °C 25 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
28 Oct 32.3 °C 33 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
29 Oct 35.8 °C 27 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
30 Oct 36.0 °C 23 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
31 Oct after 35.2 °C 21 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
1 Nov after 34.1 °C 25 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
2 Nov after 35.4 °C 21 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
3 Nov after 36.0 °C 19 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
4 Nov after 37.1 °C 17 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
5 Nov after 34.6 °C 31 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
6 Nov after 34.0 °C 28 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
7 Nov after 33.5 °C 32 % 20 km/h 0.3 mm High 23
8 Nov after 33.3 °C 31 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
9 Nov after 35.1 °C 24 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 24

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 20 Oct 2019
After · 6 Nov 2019

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 · 70Every 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 Kafta Humera fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 27 October 2019 and 30 October 2019: 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 2,818 hectares (28.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Kafta Humera (2,838 ha, 0.5 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.0 °C, humidity dropped to 23 % and gusts hit 31 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 20, class Moderate.
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.