Satellites first detected fire on 4 November 2026 in Sherkole, Ethiopia. It has been active for 10 days, with 169 heat detections and an area with fire of about 2,128 hectares rebuilt from them, spread across 2 municipalities.
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.
The power measured by the satellite is low (19.7 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.
Estimated from hotspots: no perimeter has been published yet.
This is an estimate from the VIIRS pixels that saw fire. It will change when the perimeter is published.
From 4 Nov 2026 to today: still being detected.
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.
First day with fire seen by the satellites or the perimeter.
No official record is matched to this page, so the alert time and the cause are not known here.
VIIRS detections at 375 m. Most intense hotspot: 20 MW.
There is no official record to compare with. Each hotspot is a pixel detected in one satellite pass, not a separate fire.
Total radiative power on 6 November 2026; hotspots that day: 63.
Fire radiative power (FRP) measures the energy the fire gives off when the satellite passes. Added up by day, it compares intensity, not area.
Fire Weather Index (Canadian system) computed by WorldFires for the day the fire started. Consecutive days without rain before: 6.
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
High of 39.4 °C and minimum humidity of 14% on 4 November 2026; gusts of 33 km/h on 9 November 2026.
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.
This page is not in the change log yet: its first snapshot is saved tonight. What follows is reconstructed from each source’s date.
This page has no snapshot in the log yet: the first one is saved tonight. Meanwhile, cite the page link with the date you accessed it.
This page has no snapshot in the log yet: the first one is saved tonight. Meanwhile, cite the page link with the date you accessed it.
| fecha | focos_viirs | frp_mw | tmax_c | tmin_c | hr_min_pct | viento_max_kmh | racha_max_kmh | precip_mm | fwi | clase_fwi | dentro_del_incendio |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026-11-04 | 12 | 133 | 39.4 | 23.1 | 14 | 12.1 | 30.6 | 0 | 37.8 | alto | 1 |
| 2026-11-05 | 20 | 94 | 38.7 | 23.4 | 16 | 10.4 | 22 | 0 | 36.9 | alto | 1 |
| 2026-11-06 | 63 | 254 | 39 | 24.4 | 14 | 7.3 | 28.8 | 0 | 42.8 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2026-11-07 | 59 | 245 | 39 | 24.5 | 13 | 11 | 27.7 | 0 | 51.3 | extremo | 1 |
| 2026-11-08 | 8 | 16 | 37.3 | 25.2 | 16 | 16 | 31.3 | 0 | 53.2 | extremo | 1 |
| 2026-11-09 | 25 | 119 | 36.6 | 23.4 | 17 | 15.8 | 33.1 | 0 | 46 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2026-11-10 | 20 | 104 | 34 | 24.7 | 15 | 12.5 | 25.9 | 0 | 45.9 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2026-11-11 | 42 | 153 | 35.7 | 22.3 | 18 | 16.5 | 30.2 | 0 | 49.6 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2026-11-12 | 31 | 122 | 36.6 | 22.9 | 18 | 14.8 | 27.4 | 0 | 47.6 | muy_alto | 1 |
| 2026-11-13 | 13 | 72 | 35.6 | 25.4 | 19 | 12.2 | 31 | 0 | 48.3 | muy_alto | 1 |
It is generated in your browser from this page’s data: one file per fire, aggregated by day and without individual hotspots.
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: NASA FIRMS (VIIRS), ECMWF IFS · Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0). Open-Meteo.com · How we build fire pages: methodology
GWIS (Copernicus) has not yet published the perimeter of this fire. It rebuilds it from hotspots, which can take several days, and it does not always arrive. For now the area is the one rebuilt from heat detections (about 14 hectares per pixel). If the perimeter arrives, this page picks it up on its own and keeps the same address.
No detections since 13 Nov 2026, 22:58 UTC. That usually means no flame is visible from space any more, although hotspots may remain. 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.
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
It had gone 6 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
Area with fire inside each municipality, rebuilt from heat detections (about 14 hectares per VIIRS pixel). An estimate until the official perimeter arrives. 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.
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) · forecast models, provisional until the ERA5 reanalysis arrives
Started with Very dry air: 26 % of the area in Ethiopia
| Day | High | Min. humidity | Peak gust | Rain | Danger (FWI) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4 Nov | 39.4 °C | 14 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 38 |
| 5 Nov | 38.7 °C | 16 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 6 Nov | 39.0 °C | 14 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 7 Nov | 39.0 °C | 13 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 8 Nov | 37.3 °C | 16 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 9 Nov | 36.6 °C | 17 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 10 Nov | 34.0 °C | 15 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 11 Nov | 35.7 °C | 18 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 50 |
| 12 Nov | 36.6 °C | 18 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 13 Nov | 35.6 °C | 19 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
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.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
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
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.
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.