How long did the Quara fire last?

According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 19 December 2025 to 18 January 2026 (31 days). The perimeter dates it from 24 December 2025 to 11 January 2026.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 35,714 hectares (357.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Quara (35,966 ha, 4.2 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 39.2 °C, humidity dropped to 11 % and gusts hit 33 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 57, 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.

ET · Ethiopia · 19 Dec 2025 – 18 Jan 2026

Quara fire, 19 December 2025 Quara

Out · last detection 19 Jan 2026, 23:59 UTC

The fire started on 19 December 2025 in Quara, Ethiopia, and satellites saw it burning for 31 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 35,714 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

The largest in Ethiopia in 2025, of 34.

GWIS near-real-time perimeter, from the layer that changed in August 2025: this fire is not compared with fires from earlier years, because since then the GWIS layer gives more and larger perimeters.

Use this data

Compare with…

Suggestions: Quara · 2020 Quara · 2016 Quara · 2021 Quara · 2024

Use this data

Fire page data · version 2026-10-27

matches the official recordwith caveatssatellite onlymodel

When copying, the sentence is

Tick the figures you want: they make up the lede and the CSV.

Burned area

satellite only

35,714ha

Union of 5 GWIS (Copernicus) perimeters: overlapping areas count once.

Source: GWIS (Copernicus)
Date: 19 Dec 2025 – 18 Jan 2026

+ cross-check

No official record is matched to this page to compare it with.

in my selection

Duration by satellite

satellite only

31days

19 Dec 2025 to 18 Jan 2026: first and last day with fire on the page.

Source: GWIS (Copernicus) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
Date: last detection: 19 Jan 2026, 23:59 UTC

+ cross-check

Satellites pass a few times a day and cloud or smoke can hide the fire: a lack of detections is not an official extinction. Each country’s emergency service declares a fire contained or out.

in my selection

Start

satellite only

19 Dec 2025

First day with fire seen by the satellites or the perimeter.

Source: GWIS (Copernicus) · NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
Date: 19 Dec 2025

+ cross-check

No official record is matched to this page, so the alert time and the cause are not known here.

in my selection

Hotspots

satellite only

1,326

VIIRS detections at 375 m. Most intense hotspot: 211 MW.

Source: NASA FIRMS · VIIRS (Suomi NPP)
Date: 19 Dec 2025 – 18 Jan 2026

+ cross-check

There is no official record to compare with. Each hotspot is a pixel detected in one satellite pass, not a separate fire.

in my selection

The worst day

satellite only

2,121MW

Total radiative power on 8 January 2026; hotspots that day: 59.

Source: NASA FIRMS · VIIRS (FRP)
Date: 8 Jan 2026

+ cross-check

Fire radiative power (FRP) measures the energy the fire gives off when the satellite passes. Added up by day, it compares intensity, not area.

in my selection

Danger at the start

model

51.0FWI · extreme

Fire Weather Index (Canadian system) computed by WorldFires for the day the fire started. Consecutive days without rain before: 45.

Source: WorldFires calculation (Canadian FWI system)
Date: 19 Dec 2025, local noon
Model: ERA5 0,25° (ECMWF · Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com

+ cross-check

This is an index computed from weather model data, not a measurement of the fire nor an official warning. Danger warnings are issued by each country’s authority. Emergency number and official warnings

in my selection

Weather during the fire

model

39.2°C · 12% RH

High of 39.2 °C and minimum humidity of 12% on 8 January 2026; gusts of 33 km/h on 30 December 2025.

Source: weather model at the fire’s grid cell
Date: 19 Dec 2025 – 18 Jan 2026
Model: ERA5 0,25° (ECMWF · Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com

+ cross-check

These are model values for a cell of about 25 km, not from a weather station: they may differ from what was measured on the ground.

in my selection

Versioned permanent link

https://worldfires.org/en/fire/quara-2025-12-3?v=2026-10-27

A version keeps the area, dates, name and official record; the area as it was logged (changes under 2% are not logged). The map, hotspots and weather always show today’s data.

Citation

A lede of about 60 words figures only, no adjectives

In another language

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CSV for this fire quara-2025-12-3.csv · daily, no individual hotspots

fecha	focos_viirs	frp_mw	tmax_c	tmin_c	hr_min_pct	viento_max_kmh	racha_max_kmh	fwi	clase_fwi	dentro_del_incendio
2025-12-19	12	60	35.6	20.9	17	13.6	30.6	51	extremo	1
2025-12-20	19	121	34.6	19.8	16	12.9	27.7	50.3	extremo	1
2025-12-21	21	75	35.1	18.9	14	11.3	25.2	48.7	muy_alto	1
2025-12-22	2	11	36.3	20.6	12	9.7	24.1	47.2	muy_alto	1
2025-12-23	45	736	38.2	21.1	12	11.1	25.9	49.1	muy_alto	1
2025-12-24	85	1,019	38.3	21	14	11	28.1	49.2	muy_alto	1
2025-12-25	118	998	37.2	21.5	11	12	29.2	50.7	extremo	1
2025-12-26	107	1,215	36.5	21.2	13	10.9	23	49.6	muy_alto	1
2025-12-27	103	1,333	37.5	22.3	14	11.7	27.7	50.8	extremo	1
2025-12-28	112	819	37.3	20.5	15	11.8	28.1	51.2	extremo	1
2025-12-29	100	674	35	21.7	15	13.2	28.1	52.4	extremo	1
2025-12-30	75	348	34	20	15	15.3	33.1	54.3	extremo	1
2025-12-31	39	189	36.4	18.9	14	11.1	24.5	49.6	muy_alto	1
2026-01-01	35	315	35.8	19.7	13	10.3	24.1	48.9	muy_alto	1
2026-01-02	49	582	36.7	19.4	11	10.7	24.1	49.6	muy_alto	1
2026-01-03	28	219	38.7	21.4	12	12.7	27	52.2	extremo	1
2026-01-04	26	477	36.9	21.6	13	11.7	25.2	51.2	extremo	1
2026-01-05	70	755	36.5	20.9	14	12.1	26.3	52	extremo	1
2026-01-06	25	321	36.8	21.3	15	13.5	25.6	53.9	extremo	1
2026-01-07	30	248	36.1	21.6	19	10.3	25.2	47.3	muy_alto	1
2026-01-08	59	2,121	39.2	22.1	12	11.8	30.6	50.5	extremo	1
2026-01-09	27	549	37.5	20.9	12	12.1	24.8	51.1	extremo	1
2026-01-10	19	196	36	21.6	13	13.6	31.7	53.1	extremo	1
2026-01-11	5	33	36.8	20.9	14	9.8	27.7	48.9	muy_alto	1
2026-01-12	3	4	38	21	16	12.5	28.8	52.3	extremo	1
2026-01-13	23	270	36.9	22.1	16	12	28.4	51.7	extremo	1
2026-01-14	7	34	37.4	22.4	14	16	30.6	56.9	extremo	1
2026-01-15	17	49	36.5	23.4	21	15.1	29.9	51.5	extremo	1
2026-01-16	18	93	35.3	21.1	18	14.2	29.2	50.7	extremo	1
2026-01-17	13	52	36.6	20.1	17	11.4	22	47.7	muy_alto	1
2026-01-18	15	115	38.1	19.6	14	13.8	28.8	50.7	extremo	1
2026-01-19	19	79	37.4	22	13	13.5	33.5	50.5	extremo	0
2026-01-20	0	0	40.2	22.4	10	13.1	29.2	54.7	extremo	0
2026-01-21	0	0	40.2	21.9	11	13	25.2	54.8	extremo	0
2026-01-22	0	0	39.2	22.5	12	13.6	28.1	55.8	extremo	0
2026-01-23	0	0	39.2	24.1	9	12.3	29.2	54.4	extremo	0
2026-01-24	0	0	39.4	21.9	7	14.6	29.9	59.3	extremo	0
2026-01-25	0	0	39.5	23.2	8	15.3	34.9	60.5	extremo	0
2026-01-26	0	0	38.9	22.3	10	15.4	31.7	60.9	extremo	0
2026-01-27	0	0	38.4	22.8	9	13.9	27.4	59.1	extremo	0
2026-01-28	0	0	38.9	23.2	12	16.3	32	62.6	extremo	0

It is generated in your browser from this page’s data: one file per fire, aggregated by day and without individual hotspots.

Live widget for your story

It updates itself while the fire is still active and links to this page. Free, with the attribution shown at the bottom.

Sources for this page: GWIS (Copernicus), NASA FIRMS (VIIRS), ERA5 (ECMWF/Copernicus C3S) · Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0), GHSL (JRC). Open-Meteo.com · How we build fire pages: methodology

Burnt area: 35,714ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 31days; 19 Dec 2025 – 18 Jan 2026
Municipalities hit: 1; districts
Started on: 19 Dec; 2025
Heat detections: 1,326; in a single hotspot: 211 MW
Danger at start: 51; Extreme · FWI index
Average daily power: 441MW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 19 Dec18 Jan

Play back 19 Jan 2026

How it evolved, day by day

19 Dec 26 Dec 2 Jan 8 Jan 16 Jan

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

Fire front film How it spread from one satellite pass to the next (67 passes) and with what wind. Watch the film

The weather it burned in

39°high

33km/h · peak gust

11%lowest humidity

It had gone 45 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

96% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 18,499 ha in 2016, 8,746 ha in 2017, 1,233 ha in 2018, 16,943 ha in 2019, 21,858 ha in 2020, 15,085 ha in 2021, 9,631 ha in 2022, 10,448 ha in 2023, 9,028 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 34,121 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

It burned the equivalent of 23% of the area of London (357 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each town

Quara where it started

35,966 ha reached on 19 Dec

4.2 %

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 2025

Built-up area< 0.1 ha

Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2025, 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. The GHSL 2025 epoch is a projection made from 2020 and earlier data.

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	Danger (FWI)
19 Dec	35.6 °C	17 %	31 km/h	Extreme 51
20 Dec	34.6 °C	16 %	28 km/h	Extreme 50
21 Dec	35.1 °C	14 %	25 km/h	Very high 49
22 Dec	36.3 °C	12 %	24 km/h	Very high 47
23 Dec	38.2 °C	12 %	26 km/h	Very high 49
24 Dec	38.3 °C	14 %	28 km/h	Very high 49
25 Dec	37.2 °C	11 %	29 km/h	Extreme 51
26 Dec	36.5 °C	13 %	23 km/h	Very high 50
27 Dec	37.5 °C	14 %	28 km/h	Extreme 51
28 Dec	37.3 °C	15 %	28 km/h	Extreme 51
29 Dec	35.0 °C	15 %	28 km/h	Extreme 52
30 Dec	34.0 °C	15 %	33 km/h	Extreme 54
31 Dec	36.4 °C	14 %	24 km/h	Very high 50
1 Jan	35.8 °C	13 %	24 km/h	Very high 49
2 Jan	36.7 °C	11 %	24 km/h	Very high 50
3 Jan	38.7 °C	12 %	27 km/h	Extreme 52
4 Jan	36.9 °C	13 %	25 km/h	Extreme 51
5 Jan	36.5 °C	14 %	26 km/h	Extreme 52
6 Jan	36.8 °C	15 %	26 km/h	Extreme 54
7 Jan	36.1 °C	19 %	25 km/h	Very high 47
8 Jan	39.2 °C	12 %	31 km/h	Extreme 50
9 Jan	37.5 °C	12 %	25 km/h	Extreme 51
10 Jan	36.0 °C	13 %	32 km/h	Extreme 53
11 Jan	36.8 °C	14 %	28 km/h	Very high 49
12 Jan	38.0 °C	16 %	29 km/h	Extreme 52
13 Jan	36.9 °C	16 %	28 km/h	Extreme 52
14 Jan	37.4 °C	14 %	31 km/h	Extreme 57
15 Jan	36.5 °C	21 %	30 km/h	Extreme 52
16 Jan	35.3 °C	18 %	29 km/h	Extreme 51
17 Jan	36.6 °C	17 %	22 km/h	Very high 48
18 Jan	38.1 °C	14 %	29 km/h	Extreme 51
19 Jan after	37.4 °C	13 %	34 km/h	Extreme 50
20 Jan after	40.2 °C	10 %	29 km/h	Extreme 55
21 Jan after	40.2 °C	11 %	25 km/h	Extreme 55
22 Jan after	39.2 °C	12 %	28 km/h	Extreme 56
23 Jan after	39.2 °C	9 %	29 km/h	Extreme 54
24 Jan after	39.4 °C	7 %	30 km/h	Extreme 59
25 Jan after	39.5 °C	8 %	35 km/h	Extreme 60
26 Jan after	38.9 °C	10 %	32 km/h	Extreme 61
27 Jan after	38.4 °C	9 %	27 km/h	Extreme 59
28 Jan after	38.9 °C	12 %	32 km/h	Extreme 63

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 12 Dec 2025

After · 25 Jan 2026

Before After

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 25 December 2025 the air beside the fire reached 28 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 21: 1.4 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak28 µg/m³

Days over the guideline5 days

PM1034 µg/m³

Optical depth0.41

WHO 15

22 Dec27 Dec1 Jan6 Jan11 Jan

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 · 1,326Every 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 time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Ethiopia

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Quara fire last?: According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 19 December 2025 to 18 January 2026 (31 days). The perimeter dates it from 24 December 2025 to 11 January 2026.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 35,714 hectares (357.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Quara (35,966 ha, 4.2 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 39.2 °C, humidity dropped to 11 % and gusts hit 33 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 57, 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

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

History of this page · 2 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.

27 October 2026 Last day with fire: 11 January 2026 → 18 January 2026.
27 October 2026 Start date: 24 December 2025 → 19 December 2025.

RSS Changes to this page With cross-checks and a citable version

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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What do you think is wrong?

Dates or duration Place or towns Burned area Name It was not a wildfire Same fire as another page Something else

What really happened?

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We will only use your email to reply about this report. Privacy.

How we know this

Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery; 5 polygons grouped in this page.
Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 24 December 2025 to 11 January 2026. 1,326 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 2025, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.

How we build fire pages: methodology

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.

Use this data

Burned area

Duration by satellite

Start

Hotspots

The worst day

Danger at the start

Weather during the fire

What was saved on 27 October 2026

Versioned permanent link

Citation

A lede of about 60 words figures only, no adjectives

CSV for this fire quara-2025-12-3.csv · daily, no individual hotspots

Live widget for your story

Where it burned

How it evolved, day by day

The weather it burned in

This area had burned before

How big is it?

What happened to each town

People and buildings inside the perimeter

The weather day by day

Before and after, from space

The smoke

Other fires nearby

Frequently asked questions

Where to verify it

Does something look wrong on this page?

Where this data comes from