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Ezo fire, 11 December 2016 Ezo, Nagero

Out · last detection 19 Dec 2016, 11:31 UTC

The fire started on 11 December 2016 in Ezo, South Sudan, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 21,896 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 52th largest in Western Equatoria since 2016 (of 361 with a page). Number 25 in South Sudan in 2016, of 244.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Ezo · 2019Ezo · 2021Nzara · 2016Nagero · 2024

Burnt area
21,896ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
8days
11 Dec 2016 – 18 Dec 2016
Municipalities hit
2
counties
Started on
11 Dec
2016
Heat detections
719
in a single hotspot: 211 MW
Danger at start
32
High · FWI index
Average daily power
997MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 11 Dec18 Dec
19 Dec 2016

How it evolved, day by day

11 Dec 2016 · 5 MW · 2 12 Dec 2016 · 1,742 MW · 152 13 Dec 2016 · 4,061 MW · 193 14 Dec 2016 · 2,229 MW · 210 15 Dec 2016 · 587 MW · 77 16 Dec 2016 · 148 MW · 39 17 Dec 2016 · 104 MW · 27 18 Dec 2016 · 92 MW · 17 19 Dec 2016 · 3 MW · 2
11 Dec 13 Dec 15 Dec 17 Dec 19 Dec

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

The weather it burned in

36°high
37km/h · peak gust
16%lowest humidity

It had gone 8 days 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.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 14% of the area of London (219 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each town

  1. Ezo where it started
    20,417 ha reached on 11 Dec
    2.5 %
  2. Nagero
    1,644 ha reached on 12 Dec
    0.2 %

Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance runs from the point marking the centre of each area 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)
11 Dec 35.5 °C 19 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
12 Dec 35.2 °C 23 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
13 Dec 34.2 °C 25 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
14 Dec 35.1 °C 19 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
15 Dec 33.5 °C 20 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
16 Dec 34.5 °C 17 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
17 Dec 34.9 °C 17 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
18 Dec 34.9 °C 16 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
19 Dec after 35.3 °C 20 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
20 Dec after 35.5 °C 19 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
21 Dec after 35.8 °C 20 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
22 Dec after 36.4 °C 22 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
23 Dec after 35.7 °C 24 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
24 Dec after 36.2 °C 21 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
25 Dec after 36.9 °C 20 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
26 Dec after 35.6 °C 18 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
27 Dec after 35.3 °C 21 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
28 Dec after 35.3 °C 19 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 4 Dec 2016
After · 25 Dec 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 · 719Every 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 Ezo fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 11 December 2016 and 18 December 2016: 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 21,896 hectares (219.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Ezo (20,417 ha, 2.5 %); Nagero (1,644 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 35.5 °C, humidity dropped to 16 % and gusts hit 37 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 37, class High.
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

History of this page Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.

No changes since 24 October 2026.

RSS Changes to this page

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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How we know this
  • Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery; 3 polygons grouped in this page.
  • Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 719 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.

How we build fire pages: methodology ›

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.