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SS · South Sudan · →

Manyo fire, 5 November 2020 Manyo

Out · last detection 10 Nov 2020, 23:03 UTC

The fire started on 5 November 2020 in Manyo, South Sudan, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,639 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 165th largest in Upper Nile since 2016 (of 284 with a page). Number 118 in South Sudan in 2020, of 190.

Burnt area
6,639ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
6days
5 Nov 2020 – 10 Nov 2020
Municipalities hit
1
counties
Started on
5 Nov
2020
Heat detections
163
in a single hotspot: 133 MW
Danger at start
49
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
3.4GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

10 Nov 2020
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 5 Nov10 Nov

How it evolved, day by day

58910

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

The weather it burned in

39°high
41km/h · peak gust
13%lowest humidity

It had gone 21 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

3% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 179 ha in 2019.

What happened to each town

  1. Manyo where it started
    6,693 ha reached on 5 Nov
    1.0 %

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)
5 Nov 39.1 °C 17 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
6 Nov 37.6 °C 13 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
7 Nov 36.3 °C 13 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
8 Nov 36.3 °C 14 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
9 Nov 36.0 °C 14 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
10 Nov 36.5 °C 15 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
11 Nov after 36.5 °C 16 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
12 Nov after 37.8 °C 20 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
13 Nov after 37.9 °C 19 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
14 Nov after 36.9 °C 18 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
15 Nov after 36.7 °C 17 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
16 Nov after 36.6 °C 18 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
17 Nov after 38.0 °C 18 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
18 Nov after 37.8 °C 17 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
19 Nov after 37.3 °C 18 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
20 Nov after 36.5 °C 17 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 29 Oct 2020
After · 17 Nov 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 · 163Every 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 Manyo fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 5 November 2020 and 10 November 2020: 6 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 6,639 hectares (66.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Manyo (6,693 ha, 1.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 39.1 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 41 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.