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ET · Ethiopia · –

Sirba Abay fire, November 2017 Sirba Abay, Wenbera

Out · last detection 13 Dec 2017, 23:35 UTC

The fire started on 14 November 2017 in Sirba Abay, Ethiopia, and satellites saw it burning for 30 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,871 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 319th largest in Beneshangul Gumu since 2016 (of 635 with a page). Number 152 in Ethiopia in 2017, of 266.

Burnt area
2,871ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
30days
14 Nov 2017 – 13 Dec 2017
Municipalities hit
2
districts
Started on
14 Nov
2017
Heat detections
164
in a single hotspot: 66 MW
Danger at start
34
High · FWI index
Average daily power
71MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 14 Nov13 Dec
13 Dec 2017

How it evolved, day by day

16 Nov 2017 · 10 MW · 3 17 Nov 2017 · 36 MW · 7 18 Nov 2017 · 66 MW · 2 19 Nov 2017 · 10 MW · 2 20 Nov 2017 · 47 MW · 5 21 Nov 2017 · 191 MW · 12 23 Nov 2017 · 135 MW · 14 24 Nov 2017 · 101 MW · 11 25 Nov 2017 · 159 MW · 5 26 Nov 2017 · 23 MW · 4 27 Nov 2017 · 6 MW · 1 29 Nov 2017 · 47 MW · 10 30 Nov 2017 · 48 MW · 7 1 Dec 2017 · 76 MW · 5 2 Dec 2017 · 29 MW · 7 3 Dec 2017 · 147 MW · 6 4 Dec 2017 · 13 MW · 4 5 Dec 2017 · 92 MW · 10 6 Dec 2017 · 110 MW · 8 7 Dec 2017 · 23 MW · 5 8 Dec 2017 · 51 MW · 7 10 Dec 2017 · 104 MW · 17 12 Dec 2017 · 18 MW · 3 13 Dec 2017 · 168 MW · 9
16 Nov 21 Nov 27 Nov 3 Dec 8 Dec

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

The weather it burned in

39°high
34km/h · peak gust
12%lowest humidity

It had gone 14 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

7% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 204 ha in 2016.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 1.8% of the area of London (29 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

  1. Sirba Abay where it started
    2,546 ha reached on 16 Nov
    1.0 %
  2. 345 ha reached on 21 Nov
    0.0 %

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 2015
Built-up area< 0.1 ha
Residents≈ 70

Inside the perimeter there were about 0.06 hectares of built-up land and about 70 residents (GHSL 2015, 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)
14 Nov 36.6 °C 24 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
15 Nov 38.3 °C 19 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
16 Nov 38.8 °C 16 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
17 Nov 38.4 °C 16 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
18 Nov 38.4 °C 16 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
19 Nov 38.6 °C 13 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
20 Nov 38.5 °C 13 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
21 Nov 37.1 °C 14 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
22 Nov 36.3 °C 17 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
23 Nov 36.2 °C 17 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
24 Nov 37.2 °C 17 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
25 Nov 37.4 °C 19 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
26 Nov 36.7 °C 19 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
27 Nov 37.1 °C 20 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
28 Nov 37.6 °C 20 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
29 Nov 38.0 °C 19 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
30 Nov 38.0 °C 17 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
1 Dec 37.5 °C 20 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
2 Dec 37.1 °C 21 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
3 Dec 37.7 °C 19 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
4 Dec 38.4 °C 16 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
5 Dec 38.2 °C 14 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
6 Dec 38.0 °C 14 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
7 Dec 37.6 °C 13 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
8 Dec 37.6 °C 13 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
9 Dec 38.2 °C 15 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
10 Dec 38.2 °C 12 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
11 Dec 38.2 °C 12 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
12 Dec 38.4 °C 12 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
13 Dec 37.8 °C 12 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
14 Dec after 37.2 °C 12 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
15 Dec after 36.9 °C 13 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
16 Dec after 37.5 °C 12 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
17 Dec after 37.8 °C 13 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
18 Dec after 38.3 °C 14 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
19 Dec after 38.3 °C 13 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
20 Dec after 38.5 °C 12 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
21 Dec after 38.6 °C 13 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
22 Dec after 38.9 °C 10 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
23 Dec after 38.3 °C 9 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49

Its twins: fires that started in the same weather

It started with an FWI of 34.5, a minimum humidity of 24% and 14 days without rain. Fires in the area that started in weather like this since 2016: 46.

FWI at the start 34.5
Minimum humidity 24 %
Days without rain 14
this fire chosen twins rest of the area
Almost identicalSimilar

Outlines of the closest twins

Al Kurmuk fire, November 2016
2,189 ha 10 days FWI 34.1 Min. humidity 24 % 88 km away, in 2016

First rain (1 mm or more) after it ended: none in the following ten days.

What happened to them

10 days
median duration
2,726 ha
median area
100 %
went past 1,000 ha
2.5 mm
rain at the end (median; 3 of 46 had it)

It burned an area similar to its twins (2,871 ha against a median of 2,726 ha) and lasted 30 days, against 10 days.

In 43 of 46, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 2.5 mm.

This is a bank of analogues: it shows what usually happens, not what will happen. With fewer than 15 twins we give no figures. How we calculate it

How it ended

—first rain
—no rain in ten days
34km/h · max. gust

It was considered over on 13 Dec, and not even 1 mm fell in the following ten days: it went out without rain. Twins with rain when they ended: 3 of 46, with a median of 2.5 mm.

Weather on this page: Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)

How a twin is chosen

  • Same area: fires that have already ended, less than 250 km from this one, since 2016.
  • Same start: we compare the FWI on the first day, the minimum humidity that day and the run of days without rain before it. The slider sets how much they may differ.
  • Only pages with final weather data (ERA5 reanalysis) calculated in the same way as this fire’s; agricultural and grass burns and pages with data under review are left out.
  • Fires burning at the same time as this one (a week before or after) are left out: they share the same spell of weather and do not count as a precedent.
  • They are sorted by similarity, and the outlines of the first five are drawn.

How we calculate it

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 7 Nov 2017
After · 20 Dec 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 · 164Every 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 Sirba Abay fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 14 November 2017 to 13 December 2017 (30 days). The perimeter dates it from 21 November 2017 to 6 December 2017.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 2,871 hectares (28.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Sirba Abay (2,546 ha, 1.0 %); Wenbera (345 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 38.8 °C, humidity dropped to 12 % and gusts hit 34 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 49, 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.
How did the fires that started in similar weather in this area end?
Fires less than 250 km away that started since 2016 with a similar FWI, humidity and dry spell: 46. Their median duration was 10 days and their median area 2,726 ha; 100 % went past 1,000 ha. In 43 of 46, not even 1 mm fell in the ten days after the end: they went out without rain. In the rest, the first rainy day brought a median of 2.5 mm.

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.
  1. Last day with fire: 6 December 2017 → 13 December 2017.
  2. Start date: 21 November 2017 → 14 November 2017.

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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How we know this
  • Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery.
  • Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 21 November 2017 to 6 December 2017. 164 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 2015, 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.