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Menge fire, 6 January 2017 Menge

Out · last detection 9 Jan 2017, 11:38 UTC

The fire started on 6 January 2017 in Menge, Ethiopia, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,317 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 269th largest in Beneshangul Gumu since 2016 (of 699 with a page). Number 120 in Ethiopia in 2017, of 266.

Burnt area
3,317ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
4days
6 Jan 2017 – 9 Jan 2017
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
6 Jan
2017
Heat detections
58
in a single hotspot: 47 MW
Danger at start
46
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
535MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

9 Jan 2017
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 6 Jan9 Jan

How it evolved, day by day

6789

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

The weather it burned in

33°high
38km/h · peak gust
6%lowest humidity

It had gone 57 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

11% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 358 ha in 2016.

What happened to each town

  1. Menge where it started
    3,338 ha reached on 4 Jan
    2.2 %

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.

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)
6 Jan 32.7 °C 7 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
7 Jan 32.5 °C 6 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
8 Jan 32.1 °C 9 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
9 Jan 31.9 °C 11 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
10 Jan after 33.5 °C 10 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
11 Jan after 33.1 °C 6 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
12 Jan after 33.9 °C 5 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
13 Jan after 34.1 °C 5 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
14 Jan after 33.4 °C 8 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
15 Jan after 33.2 °C 10 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
16 Jan after 34.5 °C 6 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
17 Jan after 33.9 °C 10 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
18 Jan after 34.7 °C 5 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
19 Jan after 33.9 °C 8 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 30 Dec 2016
After · 16 Jan 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 · 58Every 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 Menge fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 6 January 2017 and 9 January 2017: 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 3,317 hectares (33.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Menge (3,338 ha, 2.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 32.7 °C, humidity dropped to 6 % and gusts hit 38 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 54, 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.