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Wenbera fire, 2 January 2017 Wenbera

Out · last detection 12 Jan 2017, 23:16 UTC

The fire started on 2 January 2017 in Wenbera, Ethiopia, and satellites saw it burning for 10 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,918 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 129th largest in Beneshangul Gumu since 2016 (of 699 with a page). Number 61 in Ethiopia in 2017, of 266.

Burnt area
4,918ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
10days
2 Jan 2017 – 11 Jan 2017
Municipalities hit
1
districts
Started on
2 Jan
2017
Heat detections
157
in a single hotspot: 71 MW
Danger at start
43
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
1.3GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

12 Jan 2017
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 2 Jan11 Jan

How it evolved, day by day

23456789101112

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

The weather it burned in

37°high
32km/h · peak gust
8%lowest humidity

It had gone 53 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

56% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,754 ha in 2016.

What happened to each town

  1. Wenbera where it started
    4,953 ha reached on 2 Jan
    0.7 %

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)
2 Jan 36.4 °C 15 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
3 Jan 35.8 °C 19 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
4 Jan 36.0 °C 19 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
5 Jan 35.8 °C 18 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
6 Jan 36.2 °C 13 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
7 Jan 36.3 °C 9 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
8 Jan 35.8 °C 12 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
9 Jan 36.0 °C 14 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
10 Jan 37.0 °C 13 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
11 Jan 36.7 °C 8 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
12 Jan after 37.4 °C 5 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
13 Jan after 37.5 °C 7 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
14 Jan after 36.5 °C 10 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
15 Jan after 36.9 °C 14 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
16 Jan after 38.2 °C 9 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
17 Jan after 37.8 °C 10 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
18 Jan after 38.5 °C 8 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
19 Jan after 37.7 °C 10 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
20 Jan after 37.1 °C 13 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
21 Jan after 37.4 °C 11 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 26 Dec 2016
After · 18 Jan 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 · 157Every 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 Wenbera fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 2 January 2017 and 11 January 2017: 10 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 4,918 hectares (49.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Wenbera (4,953 ha, 0.7 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.0 °C, humidity dropped to 8 % and gusts hit 32 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.

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.

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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.