How long did the Surma fire last?

According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 23 August 2026 to 7 September 2026 (16 days). The perimeter dates it from 25 August 2026 to 2 September 2026.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 5,053 hectares (50.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Surma (5,089 ha, 1.1 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 33.2 °C, humidity dropped to 14 % and gusts hit 53 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 52, 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 · 2026-08-23 → 2026-09-07

Surma fire, August 2026 Surma

Out · last detection 7 Sept 2026, 10:58 UTC

The fire started on 23 August 2026 in Surma, Ethiopia, and satellites saw it burning for 16 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,053 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 27th largest in SNNPR since 2016 (of 186 with a page). Number 26 in Ethiopia in 2026, of 190.

Burnt area: 5,053ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 16days; 23 Aug 2026 – 7 Sept 2026
Municipalities hit: 1; districts
Started on: 23 Aug; 2026
Heat detections: 83; in a single hotspot: 107 MW
Danger at start: 38; High · FWI index
Energy released: 1.2GW; sum of detected power

Play back 7 Sept 2026

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 23 Aug7 Sept

How it evolved, day by day

23262728293031127

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

The weather it burned in

33°high

53km/h · peak gust

14%lowest humidity

It had gone 2 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 3.0 mm on 13 Sept.

This area had burned before

70% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 95 ha in 2016, 2,185 ha in 2017, 2,070 ha in 2019, 1,190 ha in 2021, 1,056 ha in 2023, 263 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 3,518 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

Surma where it started

5,089 ha reached on 23 Aug

1.1 %

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)
23 Aug	32.2 °C	22 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	High 38
24 Aug	32.1 °C	25 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
25 Aug	31.7 °C	20 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
26 Aug	33.2 °C	18 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
27 Aug	32.5 °C	17 %	49 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 47
28 Aug	32.0 °C	14 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 48
29 Aug	31.0 °C	17 %	52 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 52
30 Aug	29.7 °C	23 %	52 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 49
31 Aug	30.7 °C	26 %	51 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 46
1 Sept	31.7 °C	24 %	53 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 47
2 Sept	32.7 °C	21 %	42 km/h	0.2 mm	Very high 43
3 Sept	31.8 °C	22 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	High 38
4 Sept	31.6 °C	22 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	High 36
5 Sept	31.7 °C	24 %	32 km/h	0.2 mm	Very high 39
6 Sept	31.9 °C	23 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44
7 Sept	32.3 °C	20 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
8 Sept after	32.1 °C	24 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44
9 Sept after	31.8 °C	24 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 43
10 Sept after	29.2 °C	27 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 42
11 Sept after	32.1 °C	23 %	43 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 43
12 Sept after	31.1 °C	27 %	38 km/h	0.2 mm	Very high 41
13 Sept after	30.5 °C	30 %	28 km/h	3.0 mm	Moderate 12

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 16 Aug 2026

After · 14 Sept 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 3 September 2026 the air beside the fire reached 57 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 34: 2.2 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak57 µg/m³

Days over the guideline11 days

PM1062 µg/m³

Optical depth0.67

WHO 15

212223242526272829303112345678910

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 · 83Every 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 Surma fire last?: According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 23 August 2026 to 7 September 2026 (16 days). The perimeter dates it from 25 August 2026 to 2 September 2026.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 5,053 hectares (50.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Surma (5,089 ha, 1.1 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 33.2 °C, humidity dropped to 14 % and gusts hit 53 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 52, 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 ↗

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.

Where it burned