Surma fire, February 2016 Surma
The fire started on 18 February 2016 in Surma, Ethiopia, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,197 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 152th largest in SNNPR since 2016 (of 186 with a page). Number 268 in Ethiopia in 2016, of 309.
- Burnt area
- 2,197ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 3days
- 18 Feb 2016 – 20 Feb 2016
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- districts
- Started on
- 18 Feb
- 2016
- Heat detections
- 58
- in a single hotspot: 61 MW
- Energy released
- 1.1GW
- sum of detected power
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
This area had burned before
No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.
What happened to each town
-
Surma where it started2,086 ha reached on 18 Feb0.4 %
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.
Before and after, from space
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.
Detections table · 58Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 8,292 haPibor7 January 2026 · 15 days · 12 km away
- 8,250 haSurma26 December 2020 · 4 days · 15 km away
- 12,241 haPiborDecember 2020 · 6 days · 24 km away
- 7,244 haPibor7 February 2016 · 6 days · 33 km away
- 11,107 haPibor12 January 2019 · 5 days · 39 km away
- 7,501 haPibor28 January 2021 · 5 days · 39 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Surma fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 18 February 2016 and 20 February 2016: 3 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 2,197 hectares (22.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Surma (2,086 ha, 0.4 %).
- 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.
Report an error
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.