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ET · Ethiopia · →

Lare fire, January 2026 Lare

Out · last detection 29 Jan 2026, 11:37 UTC

The fire started on 13 January 2026 in Lare, Ethiopia, and satellites saw it burning for 16 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,642 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 217th largest in Gambela since 2016 (of 611 with a page). Number 56 in Ethiopia in 2026, of 190.

Burnt area
3,642ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
16days
13 Jan 2026 – 28 Jan 2026
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
13 Jan
2026
Heat detections
116
in a single hotspot: 54 MW
Danger at start
41
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
927MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

29 Jan 2026
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 13 Jan28 Jan

How it evolved, day by day

131415161718192023242526272829

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

The weather it burned in

41°high
33km/h · peak gust
11%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

55% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 676 ha in 2016, 5 ha in 2017, 22 ha in 2018, 324 ha in 2020, 1,102 ha in 2021, 2 ha in 2023, 319 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,014 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Lare where it started
    2,661 ha reached on 6 Jan
    4.0 %

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)
13 Jan 37.5 °C 21 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
14 Jan 37.7 °C 18 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
15 Jan 36.9 °C 21 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
16 Jan 35.5 °C 20 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
17 Jan 36.8 °C 19 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
18 Jan 38.2 °C 21 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
19 Jan 37.9 °C 21 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
20 Jan 38.8 °C 22 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
21 Jan 38.5 °C 22 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
22 Jan 38.3 °C 21 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
23 Jan 39.3 °C 13 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
24 Jan 40.0 °C 15 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
25 Jan 40.7 °C 13 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
26 Jan 40.6 °C 11 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
27 Jan 39.8 °C 16 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
28 Jan 38.2 °C 21 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
29 Jan after 39.1 °C 15 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
30 Jan after 39.8 °C 17 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
31 Jan after 37.0 °C 22 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
1 Feb after 35.8 °C 27 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
2 Feb after 38.2 °C 18 % 17 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
3 Feb after 39.5 °C 18 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
4 Feb after 40.0 °C 18 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
5 Feb after 36.3 °C 19 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
6 Feb after 39.0 °C 21 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
7 Feb after 39.9 °C 12 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 6 Jan 2026
After · 4 Feb 2026

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 · Copernicus

On 26 January 2026 the air beside the fire reached 91 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 56: 3.7 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak91 µg/m³
Days over the guideline21 days
PM1094 µg/m³
Optical depth1.08
111213141516171819202122232425262728293031
Good Fair Moderate Poor Very poor Extremely poor

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 · 116Every 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 Lare fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 13 January 2026 and 28 January 2026: 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 3,642 hectares (36.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Lare (2,661 ha, 4.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 40.7 °C, humidity dropped to 11 % and gusts hit 33 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 51, 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.