Yaso fire, 7 January 2017 Yaso, Gida Ayana, Ibantu
The fire started on 7 January 2017 in Yaso, Ethiopia, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 11,905 hectares from heat detections, spread across 3 municipalities.
It is the 2th largest in Oromia since 2016 (of 264 with a page). Number 6 in Ethiopia in 2017, of 266.
Compare with…
Suggestions: Yaso · 2016Yaso · 2016Yaso · 2016Yaso · 2016
- Burnt area
- 11,905ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 8days
- 7 Jan 2017 – 14 Jan 2017
- Municipalities hit
- 3
- districts
- Started on
- 7 Jan
- 2017
- Heat detections
- 364
- in a single hotspot: 41 MW
- Danger at start
- 41
- Very high · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 209MW
- detected power per day, on average
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.
The weather it burned in
It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
61% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 7,406 ha in 2016.
- 5,754 ha Yaso fire, January 2016 8,828 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 609 ha Yaso fire, February 2016 3,111 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 190 ha Yaso fire, November 2016 2,515 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 90 ha Yaso fire, December 2016 4,255 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 74 ha Gida Ayana fire, February 2016 4,320 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1 ha Ibantu fire, February 2016 2,506 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
How big is it?
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Paris boundary: geoBoundaries · Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière (IGN-F) (Etalab Open License 2.0).
Madrid boundary: geoBoundaries · Open Data ESRI, IGN Central Registry of Cartography Area (CC BY 4.0).
Berlin boundary: geoBoundaries · Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy (dl-de/by-2-0).
This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.
What happened to each town
-
Yaso where it started10,830 ha reached on 1 Jan4.2 %
-
1,139 ha reached on 6 Jan0.6 %
-
23 ha reached on 15 Jan0.0 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 Jan | 33.1 °C | 14 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 2 Jan | 33.2 °C | 12 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 3 Jan | 33.9 °C | 15 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 4 Jan | 33.1 °C | 15 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 5 Jan | 33.3 °C | 11 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 6 Jan | 32.8 °C | 11 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 7 Jan | 32.8 °C | 12 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 8 Jan | 33.2 °C | 15 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 9 Jan | 32.9 °C | 16 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 10 Jan | 33.8 °C | 12 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 11 Jan | 33.2 °C | 8 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 12 Jan | 32.9 °C | 11 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 13 Jan | 33.2 °C | 11 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 14 Jan | 33.2 °C | 13 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 15 Jan after | 33.2 °C | 17 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 16 Jan after | 34.7 °C | 15 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 17 Jan after | 34.6 °C | 14 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 18 Jan after | 34.8 °C | 13 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 19 Jan after | 34.2 °C | 16 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 20 Jan after | 33.1 °C | 17 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 21 Jan after | 33.6 °C | 20 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 22 Jan after | 34.9 °C | 19 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 23 Jan after | 35.6 °C | 15 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 24 Jan after | 35.3 °C | 17 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 25 Jan after | 35.2 °C | 17 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
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 · 364Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 8,828 haYaso5 January 2016 · 16 days · 3 km away
- 7,432 haYaso20 February 2026 · 14 days · 3 km away
- 8,938 haYaso27 January 2021 · 8 days · 7 km away
- 13,228 haWembermaJanuary 2016 · 10 days · 17 km away
- 7,791 haDibat23 January 2020 · 15 days · 23 km away
- 8,143 haDibat29 February 2016 · 8 days · 32 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Yaso fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 7 January 2017 and 14 January 2017: 8 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 11,905 hectares (119.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 3 municipalities: Yaso (10,830 ha, 4.2 %); Gida Ayana (1,139 ha, 0.6 %); Ibantu (23 ha, 0.0 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 33.9 °C, humidity dropped to 8 % and gusts hit 37 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 48, 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.
Report an error
How we know this
- Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery.
- Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 364 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.
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.