Mandura fire, March 2021 Mandura, Dangura, Dibat
The fire started on 1 March 2021 in Mandura, Ethiopia, and satellites saw it burning for 22 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 42,975 hectares from heat detections, spread across 4 municipalities.
It is the 7th largest in Beneshangul Gumu since 2016 (of 700 with a page). Number 3 in Ethiopia in 2021, of 255.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 42,975ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 22days
- 1 Mar 2021 – 22 Mar 2021
- Municipalities hit
- 4
- districts
- Started on
- 1 Mar
- 2021
- Heat detections
- 1,400
- in a single hotspot: 334 MW
- Danger at start
- 39
- Very high · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 782MW
- 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
97% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 27,633 ha in 2016, 25,259 ha in 2017, 30,248 ha in 2018, 20,943 ha in 2019, 30,176 ha in 2020. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 41,709 ha that had burned before.
- 30,248 ha Dangura fire, March 2018 55,315 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 30,075 ha Dangura fire, January 2020 125,093 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 26,591 ha Dangura fire, February 2016 89,959 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 21,893 ha Dangura fire, February 2017 39,054 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 10,228 ha Mandura fire, March 2019 14,961 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 4,034 ha Mandura fire, March 2019 5,654 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 3,707 ha Dangura fire, February 2019 6,621 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 3,089 ha Mandura fire, February 2017 33,850 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
-
Mandura where it started35,446 ha reached on 1 Mar33 %
-
4,211 ha reached on 1 Mar0.8 %
-
2,275 ha reached on 11 Mar1.0 %
-
1,300 ha reached on 13 Mar0.4 %
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 1.5 hectares of built-up land and about 2,300 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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 Mar | 34.0 °C | 20 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 2 Mar | 32.0 °C | 25 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 3 Mar | 32.3 °C | 25 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 4 Mar | 33.8 °C | 23 % | 21 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 5 Mar | 34.1 °C | 21 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 6 Mar | 36.6 °C | 17 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 7 Mar | 35.6 °C | 15 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 8 Mar | 35.8 °C | 16 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 9 Mar | 34.9 °C | 16 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 10 Mar | 36.0 °C | 15 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 11 Mar | 36.5 °C | 14 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 12 Mar | 37.5 °C | 13 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 13 Mar | 36.6 °C | 14 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 14 Mar | 36.4 °C | 18 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 15 Mar | 35.8 °C | 18 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 16 Mar | 35.7 °C | 19 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 17 Mar | 35.7 °C | 20 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 18 Mar | 32.9 °C | 24 % | 34 km/h | 0.6 mm | Very high 38 |
| 19 Mar | 32.9 °C | 32 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 20 Mar | 34.2 °C | 26 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 21 Mar | 36.3 °C | 12 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 22 Mar | 36.7 °C | 13 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 50 |
| 23 Mar after | 35.9 °C | 18 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 24 Mar after | 36.6 °C | 17 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 25 Mar after | 36.3 °C | 15 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 26 Mar after | 37.5 °C | 13 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 27 Mar after | 35.0 °C | 15 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 50 |
| 28 Mar after | 33.6 °C | 18 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 29 Mar after | 34.7 °C | 19 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 30 Mar after | 35.3 °C | 18 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 31 Mar after | 34.6 °C | 18 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 1 Apr after | 35.1 °C | 18 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
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 · 1,400Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 55,315 haDanguraMarch 2018 · 17 days · 2 km away
- 55,089 haMandura18 February 2024 · 23 days · 5 km away
- 39,054 haDangura19 February 2017 · 18 days · 8 km away
- 39,575 haDangura17 February 2025 · 29 days · 14 km away
- 125,093 haDangura22 January 2020 · 66 days · 27 km away
- 91,996 haBulen25 January 2022 · 61 days · 29 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Mandura fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 1 March 2021 to 22 March 2021 (22 days). The perimeter dates it from 7 March 2021 to 15 March 2021.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 42,975 hectares (429.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 4 municipalities: Mandura (35,446 ha, 33 %); Dangura (4,211 ha, 0.8 %); Dibat (2,275 ha, 1.0 %); Bulen (1,300 ha, 0.4 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 37.5 °C, humidity dropped to 12 % and gusts hit 37 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 50, 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 · 2 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
- Last day with fire: 15 March 2021 → 22 March 2021.
- Start date: 7 March 2021 → 1 March 2021.
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; 2 polygons grouped in this page.
- Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 7 March 2021 to 15 March 2021. 1,400 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.