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SS · South Sudan · →

Ezo fire, January 2023 Ezo, Nzara

Out · last detection 4 Jan 2023, 11:51 UTC

The fire started on 1 January 2023 in Ezo, South Sudan, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 7,382 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 187th largest in Western Equatoria since 2016 (of 361 with a page). Number 62 in South Sudan in 2023, of 106.

Burnt area
7,382ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
4days
1 Jan 2023 – 4 Jan 2023
Municipalities hit
2
counties
Started on
1 Jan
2023
Heat detections
288
in a single hotspot: 277 MW
Danger at start
48
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
4.7GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

4 Jan 2023
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 1 Jan4 Jan

How it evolved, day by day

1234

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

The weather it burned in

35°high
43km/h · peak gust
19%lowest humidity

It had gone 18 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

97% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 4,722 ha in 2016, 3,442 ha in 2017, 3,661 ha in 2019, 2,558 ha in 2020, 2,481 ha in 2021, 117 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 7,137 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Ezo where it started
    7,351 ha reached on 30 Dec
    0.9 %
  2. Nzara
    87 ha reached on 1 Jan
    0.0 %

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)
1 Jan 35.0 °C 19 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
2 Jan 35.0 °C 23 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
3 Jan 34.3 °C 26 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
4 Jan 34.8 °C 22 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
5 Jan after 34.4 °C 21 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
6 Jan after 35.1 °C 17 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
7 Jan after 34.5 °C 16 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
8 Jan after 34.1 °C 15 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
9 Jan after 36.1 °C 14 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
10 Jan after 32.7 °C 14 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
11 Jan after 33.1 °C 11 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
12 Jan after 33.9 °C 13 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
13 Jan after 33.5 °C 16 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
14 Jan after 34.7 °C 16 % 35 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 · 25 Dec 2022
After · 11 Jan 2023

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 · 288Every 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 1 January 2023 and 4 January 2023: 4 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 7,382 hectares (73.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Ezo (7,351 ha, 0.9 %); Nzara (87 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 35.0 °C, humidity dropped to 19 % and gusts hit 43 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 48, 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.