Lare fire, April 2021 Gambella Wild Life Reserve, Lare
The fire started on 17 April 2021 in Lare, Ethiopia, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,381 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 456th largest in Gambela since 2016 (of 611 with a page). Number 193 in Ethiopia in 2021, of 255.
- Burnt area
- 2,381ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 4days
- 17 Apr 2021 – 20 Apr 2021
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- districts
- Started on
- 17 Apr
- 2021
- Heat detections
- 51
- in a single hotspot: 69 MW
- Energy released
- 548MW
- 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.
This area had burned before
18% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 282 ha in 2017, 157 ha in 2019.
What happened to each town
-
2,284 ha reached on 17 Apr4.8 %
-
Lare where it started113 ha reached on 14 Apr0.2 %
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.
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 · 51Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 22,025 haGambella Wild Life Reserve29 March 2021 · 21 days · 9 km away
- 33,633 haJore6 March 2018 · 18 days · 23 km away
- 49,326 haJikawo9 February 2026 · 36 days · 26 km away
- 22,587 haItang24 January 2026 · 52 days · 33 km away
- 47,727 haJore2 February 2021 · 36 days · 35 km away
- 25,208 haJikawo21 February 2025 · 25 days · 36 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Lare fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 17 April 2021 and 20 April 2021: 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 2,381 hectares (23.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Gambella Wild Life Reserve (2,284 ha, 4.8 %); Lare (113 ha, 0.2 %).
- 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.