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Maji fire, December 2017 Maji

Out · last detection 13 Dec 2017, 23:37 UTC

The fire started on 11 December 2017 in Maji, Ethiopia, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,340 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 59th largest in SNNPR since 2016 (of 186 with a page). Number 118 in Ethiopia in 2017, of 266.

Burnt area
3,340ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
3days
11 Dec 2017 – 13 Dec 2017
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
11 Dec
2017
Heat detections
78
in a single hotspot: 98 MW
Danger at start
16
Moderate · FWI index
Energy released
731MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

13 Dec 2017
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 11 Dec13 Dec

How it evolved, day by day

111213

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

The weather it burned in

34°high
27km/h · peak gust
22%lowest humidity

It had gone 11 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

27% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 891 ha in 2016.

What happened to each town

  1. Maji where it started
    3,362 ha reached on 11 Dec
    0.7 %

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)
11 Dec 33.2 °C 33 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
12 Dec 33.6 °C 29 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 16
13 Dec 33.7 °C 22 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
14 Dec after 34.1 °C 26 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 20
15 Dec after 34.7 °C 31 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
16 Dec after 34.6 °C 32 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
17 Dec after 35.3 °C 28 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
18 Dec after 34.2 °C 35 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 21
19 Dec after 34.6 °C 32 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 21
20 Dec after 33.5 °C 31 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
21 Dec after 34.8 °C 28 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
22 Dec after 34.5 °C 25 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 22
23 Dec after 34.4 °C 23 % 23 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 · 4 Dec 2017
After · 20 Dec 2017

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 · 78Every 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 Maji fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 11 December 2017 and 13 December 2017: 3 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 3,340 hectares (33.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Maji (3,362 ha, 0.7 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 33.7 °C, humidity dropped to 22 % and gusts hit 27 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 19, 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.