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SS · South Sudan · →

Manyo fire, February 2021 Manyo

Out · last detection 14 Feb 2021, 23:03 UTC

The fire started on 11 February 2021 in Manyo, South Sudan, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 7,135 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 150th largest in Upper Nile since 2016 (of 284 with a page). Number 106 in South Sudan in 2021, of 212.

Burnt area
7,135ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
4days
11 Feb 2021 – 14 Feb 2021
Municipalities hit
1
counties
Started on
11 Feb
2021
Heat detections
167
in a single hotspot: 35 MW
Danger at start
56
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
1.2GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

14 Feb 2021
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 11 Feb14 Feb

How it evolved, day by day

121314

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

The weather it burned in

40°high
40km/h · peak gust
9%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

22% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 173 ha in 2016, 42 ha in 2017, 268 ha in 2018, 332 ha in 2019, 950 ha in 2020. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,546 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Manyo where it started
    7,190 ha reached on 12 Feb
    1.1 %

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)
11 Feb 39.0 °C 9 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
12 Feb 39.0 °C 10 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
13 Feb 38.8 °C 11 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
14 Feb 39.6 °C 9 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
15 Feb after 39.6 °C 10 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
16 Feb after 39.8 °C 8 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 66
17 Feb after 31.2 °C 11 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 75
18 Feb after 31.1 °C 9 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 73
19 Feb after 31.2 °C 10 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 67
20 Feb after 33.0 °C 8 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 65
21 Feb after 34.1 °C 10 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 65
22 Feb after 36.4 °C 11 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
23 Feb after 36.5 °C 9 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 70
24 Feb after 34.5 °C 9 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 70

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 4 Feb 2021
After · 21 Feb 2021

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 · 167Every 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 11 February 2021 and 14 February 2021: 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 7,135 hectares (71.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Manyo (7,190 ha, 1.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 39.6 °C, humidity dropped to 9 % and gusts hit 40 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 61, 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.