Skip to content
worldfires
SS · South Sudan · →

Ayod fire, 9 February 2016 Ayod

Out · last detection 21 Feb 2016, 23:31 UTC

The fire started on 9 February 2016 in Ayod, South Sudan, and satellites saw it burning for 12 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 8,378 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 170th largest in Jonglei since 2016 (of 427 with a page). Number 96 in South Sudan in 2016, of 244.

Burnt area
8,378ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
12days
9 Feb 2016 – 20 Feb 2016
Municipalities hit
1
counties
Started on
9 Feb
2016
Heat detections
257
in a single hotspot: 128 MW
Danger at start
63
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
4.8GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

21 Feb 2016
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 9 Feb20 Feb

How it evolved, day by day

910111213141516172021

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

The weather it burned in

42°high
43km/h · peak gust
7%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

What happened to each town

  1. Ayod where it started
    8,436 ha reached on 9 Feb
    0.6 %

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)
9 Feb 38.1 °C 8 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 63
10 Feb 37.4 °C 8 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 66
11 Feb 37.3 °C 7 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 69
12 Feb 38.1 °C 10 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 66
13 Feb 39.2 °C 9 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 67
14 Feb 40.2 °C 11 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 67
15 Feb 41.0 °C 11 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 69
16 Feb 41.0 °C 12 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 69
17 Feb 41.1 °C 13 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
18 Feb 41.5 °C 12 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 64
19 Feb 42.2 °C 11 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 69
20 Feb 41.7 °C 11 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 67
21 Feb after 42.1 °C 11 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 65
22 Feb after 40.1 °C 11 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 72
23 Feb after 38.2 °C 10 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 73
24 Feb after 39.6 °C 7 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 71
25 Feb after 41.2 °C 8 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 73
26 Feb after 42.2 °C 6 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 71
27 Feb after 41.3 °C 11 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
28 Feb after 41.7 °C 8 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 63
29 Feb after 42.2 °C 14 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
1 Mar after 42.3 °C 15 % 27 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 · 2 Feb 2016
After · 27 Feb 2016

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 · 257Every 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 South Sudan ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Ayod fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 9 February 2016 and 20 February 2016: 12 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 8,378 hectares (83.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Ayod (8,436 ha, 0.6 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 42.2 °C, humidity dropped to 7 % and gusts hit 43 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 69, class Extreme.
Where does this data come from?
From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of South 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.

Report an error
What do you think is wrong?

We will only use your email to reply about this report. Privacy.

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.