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Quara fire, 10 February 2016 Quara

Out · last detection 15 Feb 2016, 23:42 UTC

The fire started on 10 February 2016 in Quara, Ethiopia, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,106 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 31th largest in Amhara since 2016 (of 171 with a page). Number 43 in Ethiopia in 2016, of 309.

The power measured by the satellite is low (28.6 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Burnt area
6,106ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
6days
10 Feb 2016 – 15 Feb 2016
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
10 Feb
2016
Heat detections
188
in a single hotspot: 29 MW
Danger at start
53
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
655MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

15 Feb 2016
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 10 Feb15 Feb

How it evolved, day by day

101112131415

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

The weather it burned in

37°high
33km/h · peak gust
10%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

What happened to each town

  1. Quara where it started
    6,141 ha reached on 10 Feb
    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)
10 Feb 35.2 °C 12 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
11 Feb 34.7 °C 12 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
12 Feb 35.0 °C 16 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
13 Feb 36.1 °C 13 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
14 Feb 37.1 °C 10 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
15 Feb 36.2 °C 13 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
16 Feb after 37.0 °C 14 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
17 Feb after 37.2 °C 11 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
18 Feb after 37.7 °C 11 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
19 Feb after 38.5 °C 9 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
20 Feb after 39.4 °C 9 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
21 Feb after 38.6 °C 10 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
22 Feb after 35.6 °C 14 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
23 Feb after 35.1 °C 9 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
24 Feb after 37.4 °C 11 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
25 Feb after 37.4 °C 12 % 32 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 · 3 Feb 2016
After · 22 Feb 2016

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 · 188Every 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 Quara fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 10 February 2016 and 15 February 2016: 6 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 6,106 hectares (61.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Quara (6,141 ha, 0.7 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.1 °C, humidity dropped to 10 % and gusts hit 33 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 53, 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.