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Kafta Humera fire, December 2019 Kafta Humera

Out · last detection 26 Dec 2019, 10:29 UTC

The fire started on 20 December 2019 in Kafta Humera, Ethiopia, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 8,430 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the largest fire in Tigray since 2016 (of 21 with a page). Number 23 in Ethiopia in 2019, of 220.

Burnt area
8,430ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
7days
20 Dec 2019 – 26 Dec 2019
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
20 Dec
2019
Heat detections
215
in a single hotspot: 101 MW
Danger at start
44
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
2.2GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

26 Dec 2019
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 20 Dec26 Dec

How it evolved, day by day

20212223242526

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

The weather it burned in

37°high
32km/h · peak gust
10%lowest humidity

It had gone 42 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

17% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,401 ha in 2018.

What happened to each town

  1. Kafta Humera where it started
    8,296 ha reached on 20 Dec
    1.3 %

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)
20 Dec 36.7 °C 22 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
21 Dec 36.4 °C 19 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
22 Dec 36.0 °C 16 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
23 Dec 35.7 °C 12 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
24 Dec 36.0 °C 10 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
25 Dec 34.9 °C 14 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
26 Dec 35.4 °C 15 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
27 Dec after 34.5 °C 20 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
28 Dec after 33.4 °C 17 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
29 Dec after 34.2 °C 16 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
30 Dec after 36.9 °C 10 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
31 Dec after 38.0 °C 14 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
1 Jan after 37.6 °C 17 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
2 Jan after 38.7 °C 15 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
3 Jan after 37.5 °C 22 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
4 Jan after 35.3 °C 33 % 32 km/h 0.4 mm Very high 42
5 Jan after 33.1 °C 33 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 13 Dec 2019
After · 2 Jan 2020

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 · 215Every 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 20 December 2019 and 26 December 2019: 7 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 8,430 hectares (84.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Kafta Humera (8,296 ha, 1.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.7 °C, humidity dropped to 10 % and gusts hit 32 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 54, 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.