Kamashi fire, January 2021 Kamashi, Agalometi, Bio Jiganifado
The fire started on 28 January 2021 in Kamashi, Ethiopia, and satellites saw it burning for 16 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 28,239 hectares from heat detections, spread across 3 municipalities.
It is the 11th largest in Beneshangul Gumu since 2016 (of 699 with a page). Number 4 in Ethiopia in 2021, of 255.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 28,239ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 16days
- 28 Jan 2021 – 12 Feb 2021
- Municipalities hit
- 3
- districts
- Started on
- 28 Jan
- 2021
- Heat detections
- 1,015
- in a single hotspot: 111 MW
- Danger at start
- 38
- High · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 524MW
- detected power per day, on average
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.
This area had burned before
84% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 8,911 ha in 2016, 18,661 ha in 2017, 967 ha in 2018, 10,254 ha in 2019, 6,376 ha in 2020. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 23,837 ha that had burned before.
- 11,343 ha Kamashi fire, January 2017 15,873 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 3,954 ha Yaso fire, January 2019 12,926 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 3,632 ha Kamashi fire, January 2016 4,486 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,977 ha Kamashi fire, February 2019 5,575 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,742 ha Kamashi fire, January 2017 3,924 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,996 ha Kamashi fire, February 2020 2,724 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,844 ha Bio Jiganifado fire, January 2016 2,644 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,763 ha Kamashi fire, January 2019 2,349 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
How big is it?
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Paris boundary: geoBoundaries · Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière (IGN-F) (Etalab Open License 2.0).
Madrid boundary: geoBoundaries · Open Data ESRI, IGN Central Registry of Cartography Area (CC BY 4.0).
Berlin boundary: geoBoundaries · Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy (dl-de/by-2-0).
This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.
What happened to each town
-
Kamashi where it started25,187 ha reached on 21 Jan17 %
-
3,214 ha reached on 22 Jan1.8 %
-
24 ha reached on 27 Jan0.0 %
Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance runs from the point marking the centre of each area to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.
People and buildings inside the perimeter
GHSL 2020Inside the perimeter there were about 3.7 hectares of built-up land and about 2,500 residents (GHSL 2020, satellite-based estimate).
This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned.
Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 21 Jan | 33.0 °C | 21 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 22 Jan | 32.8 °C | 22 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 23 Jan | 32.4 °C | 23 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 24 Jan | 31.8 °C | 25 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 25 Jan | 31.6 °C | 27 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 26 Jan | 32.7 °C | 23 % | 21 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 32 |
| 27 Jan | 32.4 °C | 23 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 28 Jan | 32.9 °C | 18 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 29 Jan | 33.1 °C | 18 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 30 Jan | 33.2 °C | 17 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 31 Jan | 33.5 °C | 17 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 1 Feb | 33.4 °C | 16 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 2 Feb | 33.7 °C | 16 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 3 Feb | 34.8 °C | 13 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 4 Feb | 33.9 °C | 16 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 5 Feb | 32.3 °C | 16 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 6 Feb | 31.6 °C | 14 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 7 Feb | 32.5 °C | 14 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 8 Feb | 34.1 °C | 16 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 9 Feb | 34.1 °C | 16 % | 21 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 10 Feb | 35.4 °C | 16 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 11 Feb | 33.8 °C | 15 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 12 Feb | 33.9 °C | 13 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 13 Feb after | 34.2 °C | 13 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 14 Feb after | 34.5 °C | 14 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 15 Feb after | 34.5 °C | 15 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 16 Feb after | 35.3 °C | 15 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 17 Feb after | 34.3 °C | 14 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 18 Feb after | 33.2 °C | 17 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 19 Feb after | 32.2 °C | 21 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 20 Feb after | 32.9 °C | 20 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 21 Feb after | 32.4 °C | 21 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 22 Feb after | 32.8 °C | 21 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 23 Feb after | 32.4 °C | 24 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 24 Feb after | 33.2 °C | 18 % | 32 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.
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 · 1,015Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 15,873 haKamashi24 January 2017 · 12 days · 4 km away
- 10,580 haAgalometi25 January 2022 · 8 days · 6 km away
- 13,880 haAgalometi27 January 2016 · 11 days · 12 km away
- 9,791 haAgalometi30 January 2017 · 6 days · 13 km away
- 8,926 haAgalometi25 January 2026 · 7 days · 13 km away
- 10,558 haAgalometi21 February 2016 · 7 days · 20 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Kamashi fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 28 January 2021 and 12 February 2021: 16 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 28,239 hectares (282.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 3 municipalities: Kamashi (25,187 ha, 17 %); Agalometi (3,214 ha, 1.8 %); Bio Jiganifado (24 ha, 0.0 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 35.4 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 38 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 48, 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
History of this page Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
No changes since 24 October 2026.
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
How we know this
- Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery; 4 polygons grouped in this page.
- Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 1,015 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
- We have not matched this page with any official record.
- Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
- Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2020, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.
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.