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Fashoda fire, 2 December 2020 Fashoda

Out · last detection 9 Dec 2020, 11:25 UTC

The fire started on 2 December 2020 in Fashoda, South Sudan, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 8,209 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 114th largest in Upper Nile since 2016 (of 284 with a page). Number 79 in South Sudan in 2020, of 190.

Burnt area
8,209ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
7days
2 Dec 2020 – 8 Dec 2020
Municipalities hit
1
counties
Started on
2 Dec
2020
Heat detections
270
in a single hotspot: 130 MW
Danger at start
49
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
3.6GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

9 Dec 2020
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 2 Dec8 Dec

How it evolved, day by day

23456789

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
42km/h · peak gust
11%lowest humidity

It had gone 31 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

89% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 3,372 ha in 2016, 3,391 ha in 2017, 4,951 ha in 2019. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 7,334 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Fashoda where it started
    8,262 ha reached on 2 Dec
    2.3 %

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)
2 Dec 35.0 °C 14 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
3 Dec 35.5 °C 14 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
4 Dec 35.8 °C 12 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
5 Dec 35.9 °C 11 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
6 Dec 36.3 °C 11 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
7 Dec 37.3 °C 18 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
8 Dec 36.8 °C 16 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
9 Dec after 36.8 °C 14 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
10 Dec after 37.0 °C 18 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
11 Dec after 37.4 °C 18 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
12 Dec after 38.1 °C 16 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
13 Dec after 37.5 °C 15 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
14 Dec after 36.8 °C 15 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
15 Dec after 36.7 °C 13 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
16 Dec after 36.4 °C 14 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
17 Dec after 35.1 °C 17 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
18 Dec after 35.3 °C 19 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 25 Nov 2020
After · 15 Dec 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 · 270Every 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 Fashoda fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 2 December 2020 and 8 December 2020: 7 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 8,209 hectares (82.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Fashoda (8,262 ha, 2.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.3 °C, humidity dropped to 11 % and gusts hit 42 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 55, 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.

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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.