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Maridi fire, 8 January 2018 Maridi

Out · last detection 16 Jan 2018, 12:02 UTC

The fire started on 8 January 2018 in Maridi, South Sudan, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,558 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 311th largest in Western Equatoria since 2016 (of 361 with a page). Number 97 in South Sudan in 2018, of 120.

Burnt area
5,558ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
8days
8 Jan 2018 – 15 Jan 2018
Municipalities hit
1
counties
Started on
8 Jan
2018
Heat detections
147
in a single hotspot: 87 MW
Danger at start
43
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
2.3GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

16 Jan 2018
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 8 Jan15 Jan

How it evolved, day by day

8910111213141516

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
34km/h · peak gust
13%lowest humidity

It had gone 38 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

18% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 562 ha in 2016, 596 ha in 2017. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 988 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Maridi where it started
    5,595 ha reached on 7 Jan
    0.7 %

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)
8 Jan 33.6 °C 13 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
9 Jan 33.6 °C 13 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
10 Jan 35.0 °C 13 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
11 Jan 35.7 °C 14 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
12 Jan 36.0 °C 13 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
13 Jan 37.2 °C 14 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
14 Jan 36.7 °C 14 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
15 Jan 34.6 °C 16 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
16 Jan after 34.8 °C 13 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
17 Jan after 34.9 °C 16 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
18 Jan after 35.3 °C 15 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
19 Jan after 36.0 °C 13 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
20 Jan after 35.2 °C 15 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
21 Jan after 36.3 °C 12 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
22 Jan after 37.0 °C 12 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
23 Jan after 37.3 °C 15 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
24 Jan after 35.7 °C 13 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
25 Jan after 34.7 °C 13 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 1 Jan 2018
After · 22 Jan 2018

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 · 147Every 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 Maridi fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 8 January 2018 and 15 January 2018: 8 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 5,558 hectares (55.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Maridi (5,595 ha, 0.7 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.2 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 34 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 47, 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.