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Ezo fire, 23 December 2019 Ezo

Out · last detection 31 Dec 2019, 12:14 UTC

The fire started on 23 December 2019 in Ezo, South Sudan, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,593 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 306th largest in Western Equatoria since 2016 (of 361 with a page). Number 129 in South Sudan in 2019, of 150.

Burnt area
5,593ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
8days
23 Dec 2019 – 30 Dec 2019
Municipalities hit
1
counties
Started on
23 Dec
2019
Heat detections
173
in a single hotspot: 253 MW
Danger at start
32
High · FWI index
Energy released
3.3GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

31 Dec 2019
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 23 Dec30 Dec

How it evolved, day by day

232425262728293031

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
36km/h · peak gust
10%lowest humidity

It had gone 7 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

24% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 753 ha in 2016, 365 ha in 2017, 367 ha in 2018. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,344 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Ezo where it started
    5,633 ha reached on 23 Dec
    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)
23 Dec 36.4 °C 19 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
24 Dec 34.7 °C 29 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
25 Dec 36.3 °C 20 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
26 Dec 35.4 °C 14 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
27 Dec 35.0 °C 11 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
28 Dec 34.4 °C 12 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
29 Dec 35.3 °C 10 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
30 Dec 36.3 °C 11 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
31 Dec after 36.4 °C 16 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
1 Jan after 37.3 °C 18 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
2 Jan after 36.9 °C 20 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
3 Jan after 37.1 °C 20 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
4 Jan after 36.0 °C 18 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
5 Jan after 33.4 °C 17 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
6 Jan after 34.7 °C 18 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
7 Jan after 35.5 °C 18 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
8 Jan after 36.2 °C 15 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
9 Jan after 35.1 °C 13 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 16 Dec 2019
After · 6 Jan 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 · 173Every 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 23 December 2019 and 30 December 2019: 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 5,593 hectares (55.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Ezo (5,633 ha, 0.7 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.4 °C, humidity dropped to 10 % and gusts hit 36 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 43, class Very 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

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.