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Fashoda fire, 15 December 2020 Fashoda

Out · last detection 18 Dec 2020, 22:51 UTC

The fire started on 15 December 2020 in Fashoda, South Sudan, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,470 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 243th largest in Upper Nile since 2016 (of 284 with a page). Number 174 in South Sudan in 2020, of 190.

Burnt area
5,470ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
4days
15 Dec 2020 – 18 Dec 2020
Municipalities hit
1
counties
Started on
15 Dec
2020
Heat detections
134
in a single hotspot: 170 MW
Danger at start
54
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
2.8GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

18 Dec 2020
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 15 Dec18 Dec

How it evolved, day by day

15161718

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
46km/h · peak gust
11%lowest humidity

It had gone 50 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

52% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,552 ha in 2016, 182 ha in 2017, 125 ha in 2018, 74 ha in 2019.

What happened to each town

  1. Fashoda where it started
    5,503 ha reached on 15 Dec
    1.5 %

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)
15 Dec 36.9 °C 11 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
16 Dec 36.7 °C 13 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
17 Dec 35.4 °C 15 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 64
18 Dec 35.5 °C 18 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
19 Dec after 35.7 °C 22 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
20 Dec after 36.1 °C 20 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
21 Dec after 36.9 °C 19 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
22 Dec after 37.9 °C 15 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
23 Dec after 38.1 °C 17 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
24 Dec after 37.2 °C 16 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
25 Dec after 38.1 °C 18 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
26 Dec after 37.0 °C 18 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
27 Dec after 36.5 °C 18 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
28 Dec after 37.4 °C 14 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 8 Dec 2020
After · 25 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 · 134Every 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 15 December 2020 and 18 December 2020: 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 5,470 hectares (54.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Fashoda (5,503 ha, 1.5 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.9 °C, humidity dropped to 11 % and gusts hit 46 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 64, 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.