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Ad Dinder fire, 7 December 2020 Ad Dinder

Out · last detection 11 Dec 2020, 10:48 UTC

The fire started on 7 December 2020 in Ad Dinder, Sudan, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 4,305 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 30th largest in Sennar since 2016 (of 130 with a page). Number 23 in Sudan in 2020, of 151.

Burnt area
4,305ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
5days
7 Dec 2020 – 11 Dec 2020
Municipalities hit
1
localities
Started on
7 Dec
2020
Heat detections
108
in a single hotspot: 97 MW
Danger at start
58
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
1.5GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

11 Dec 2020
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 7 Dec11 Dec

How it evolved, day by day

7891011

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

The weather it burned in

40°high
36km/h · peak gust
12%lowest humidity

It had gone 45 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

37% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 857 ha in 2016, 336 ha in 2017, 735 ha in 2019. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,611 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Ad Dinder where it started
    4,327 ha reached on 7 Dec
    0.3 %

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)
7 Dec 39.8 °C 19 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
8 Dec 39.4 °C 17 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
9 Dec 39.8 °C 13 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
10 Dec 40.1 °C 12 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
11 Dec 39.9 °C 15 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
12 Dec after 39.1 °C 12 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
13 Dec after 40.4 °C 10 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
14 Dec after 39.5 °C 9 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
15 Dec after 39.8 °C 10 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
16 Dec after 39.3 °C 10 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
17 Dec after 38.3 °C 13 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
18 Dec after 38.1 °C 15 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
19 Dec after 38.5 °C 14 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
20 Dec after 38.6 °C 15 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
21 Dec after 39.2 °C 13 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 30 Nov 2020
After · 18 Dec 2020

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 · 108Every 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 Sudan ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Ad Dinder fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 7 December 2020 and 11 December 2020: 5 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 4,305 hectares (43.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Ad Dinder (4,327 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 40.1 °C, humidity dropped to 12 % and gusts hit 36 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 58, class Extreme.
Where does this data come from?
From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Sudan (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 ADM2 (Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Intergovernmental Organisations (CC BY 3.0 IGO)). 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.