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Dilling fire, March 2024 Dilling

Out · last detection 9 Mar 2024, 23:23 UTC

The fire started on 8 March 2024 in Dilling, Sudan, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 2,733 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 231th largest in South Kordofan since 2016 (of 440 with a page). Number 40 in Sudan in 2024, of 89.

Burnt area
2,733ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
2days
8 Mar 2024 – 9 Mar 2024
Municipalities hit
1
localities
Started on
8 Mar
2024
Heat detections
77
in a single hotspot: 52 MW
Danger at start
78
Very extreme · FWI index
Energy released
754MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

9 Mar 2024
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 8 Mar9 Mar

How it evolved, day by day

89

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
53km/h · peak gust
4%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

43% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 514 ha in 2016, 1 ha in 2018, 729 ha in 2021. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,165 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Dilling where it started
    2,749 ha reached on 8 Mar
    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)
8 Mar 35.0 °C 4 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 78
9 Mar 37.1 °C 4 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 79
10 Mar after 38.5 °C 5 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 75
11 Mar after 40.1 °C 4 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 70
12 Mar after 40.4 °C 5 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 80
13 Mar after 40.6 °C 6 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 69
14 Mar after 40.3 °C 6 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 68
15 Mar after 40.1 °C 9 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 68
16 Mar after 39.4 °C 11 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 63
17 Mar after 38.2 °C 17 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
18 Mar after 38.8 °C 14 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 72
19 Mar after 32.2 °C 15 % 60 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 75

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 1 Mar 2024
After · 16 Mar 2024

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 6 March 2024 the air beside the fire reached 34 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 23: 1.6 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak34 µg/m³
Days over the guideline4 days
PM1096 µg/m³
Optical depth0.33
6789101112
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 · 77Every 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 Dilling fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 8 March 2024 and 9 March 2024: 2 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 2,733 hectares (27.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Dilling (2,749 ha, 0.7 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.1 °C, humidity dropped to 4 % and gusts hit 53 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 79, class Very 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.