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Maban fire, December 2020 Maban

Out · last detection 16 Dec 2020, 10:53 UTC

The fire started on 12 December 2020 in Maban, South Sudan, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,575 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 167th largest in Upper Nile since 2016 (of 284 with a page). Number 121 in South Sudan in 2020, of 190.

Burnt area
6,575ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
5days
12 Dec 2020 – 16 Dec 2020
Municipalities hit
1
counties
Started on
12 Dec
2020
Heat detections
162
in a single hotspot: 257 MW
Danger at start
32
High · FWI index
Energy released
4.9GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

16 Dec 2020
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 12 Dec16 Dec

How it evolved, day by day

1213141516

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

The weather it burned in

38°high
34km/h · peak gust
17%lowest humidity

It had gone 40 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

42% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,076 ha in 2016, 251 ha in 2017, 650 ha in 2018. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,786 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Maban where it started
    6,608 ha reached on 12 Dec
    0.6 %

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)
12 Dec 36.8 °C 22 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
13 Dec 36.7 °C 21 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
14 Dec 36.8 °C 21 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
15 Dec 37.0 °C 18 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
16 Dec 37.6 °C 17 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
17 Dec after 36.6 °C 20 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
18 Dec after 36.6 °C 20 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
19 Dec after 36.6 °C 22 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
20 Dec after 36.6 °C 22 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
21 Dec after 36.8 °C 22 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
22 Dec after 37.4 °C 19 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
23 Dec after 37.3 °C 24 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
24 Dec after 37.5 °C 19 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
25 Dec after 38.1 °C 19 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
26 Dec after 37.7 °C 19 % 37 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 · 5 Dec 2020
After · 23 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 · 162Every 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 Maban fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 12 December 2020 and 16 December 2020: 5 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 6,575 hectares (65.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Maban (6,608 ha, 0.6 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.6 °C, humidity dropped to 17 % and gusts hit 34 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 42, 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.