How long did the Manyo fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 11 November 2020 and 17 November 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 7,172 hectares (71.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Manyo (6,739 ha, 1.0 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 38.0 °C, humidity dropped to 16 % and gusts hit 42 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 58, 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.

SS · South Sudan · 2020-11-11 → 2020-11-17

Manyo fire, 11 November 2020 Manyo

Out · last detection 17 Nov 2020, 11:38 UTC

The fire started on 11 November 2020 in Manyo, South Sudan, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 7,172 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 149th largest in Upper Nile since 2016 (of 284 with a page). Number 102 in South Sudan in 2020, of 190.

The power measured by the satellite is low (20.3 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Abu Jubayhah · 2018 Manyo · 2025 Manyo · 2021 Manyo · 2022

Burnt area: 7,172ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 7days; 11 Nov 2020 – 17 Nov 2020
Municipalities hit: 1; counties
Started on: 11 Nov; 2020
Heat detections: 193; in a single hotspot: 20 MW
Danger at start: 55; Extreme · FWI index
Average daily power: 149MW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 11 Nov17 Nov

Play back 17 Nov 2020

How it evolved, day by day

11 Nov 12 Nov 13 Nov 14 Nov 15 Nov 16 Nov 17 Nov

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

42km/h · peak gust

16%lowest humidity

It had gone 27 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

61% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,669 ha in 2016, 1,356 ha in 2018, 1,669 ha in 2019. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 4,356 ha that had burned before.

763 ha Abu Jubayhah fire, March 2018 3,675 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire

How big is it?

It burned the equivalent of 4.5% of the area of London (72 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each town

Manyo where it started

6,739 ha reached on 12 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	Danger (FWI)
11 Nov	36.5 °C	16 %	41 km/h	Extreme 55
12 Nov	37.8 °C	20 %	42 km/h	Extreme 57
13 Nov	37.9 °C	19 %	41 km/h	Extreme 58
14 Nov	36.9 °C	18 %	41 km/h	Extreme 56
15 Nov	36.7 °C	17 %	40 km/h	Extreme 55
16 Nov	36.6 °C	18 %	40 km/h	Extreme 55
17 Nov	38.0 °C	18 %	42 km/h	Extreme 58
18 Nov after	37.8 °C	17 %	36 km/h	Extreme 56
19 Nov after	37.3 °C	18 %	36 km/h	Extreme 53
20 Nov after	36.5 °C	17 %	35 km/h	Extreme 58
21 Nov after	36.1 °C	12 %	44 km/h	Extreme 62
22 Nov after	36.1 °C	16 %	42 km/h	Extreme 61
23 Nov after	37.2 °C	19 %	42 km/h	Extreme 59
24 Nov after	37.3 °C	17 %	37 km/h	Extreme 55
25 Nov after	37.6 °C	15 %	35 km/h	Extreme 54
26 Nov after	37.2 °C	13 %	37 km/h	Extreme 56
27 Nov after	37.0 °C	12 %	39 km/h	Extreme 57

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 4 Nov 2020

After · 24 Nov 2020

Before After

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 · 193Every 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 time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

Other fires nearby

All fires in South Sudan ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Manyo fire last?: GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 11 November 2020 and 17 November 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 7,172 hectares (71.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Manyo (6,739 ha, 1.0 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 38.0 °C, humidity dropped to 16 % and gusts hit 42 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 58, 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

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

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.

Report an error

What do you think is wrong?

Dates or duration Place or towns Burned area Name It was not a wildfire Same fire as another page Something else

What really happened?

Your connection to the fire (optional) Email (optional)

We will only use your email to reply about this report. Privacy.

How we know this

Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery.
Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 193 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
We have not matched this page with any official record.
Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.

How we build fire pages: methodology ›

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.

Where it burned