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Maridi fire, 9 January 2020 Maridi

Out · last detection 18 Jan 2020, 11:36 UTC

The fire started on 9 January 2020 in Maridi, South Sudan, and satellites saw it burning for 9 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 12,347 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 106th largest in Western Equatoria since 2016 (of 361 with a page). Number 35 in South Sudan in 2020, of 190.

Burnt area
12,347ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
9days
9 Jan 2020 – 17 Jan 2020
Municipalities hit
1
counties
Started on
9 Jan
2020
Heat detections
296
in a single hotspot: 146 MW
Danger at start
40
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
3.4GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

18 Jan 2020
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 9 Jan17 Jan

How it evolved, day by day

9101112131415161718

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
39km/h · peak gust
11%lowest humidity

It had gone 23 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

87% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 11,708 ha in 2016, 3,309 ha in 2017, 3,859 ha in 2018, 655 ha in 2019. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 10,742 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Maridi where it started
    12,439 ha reached on 9 Jan
    1.6 %

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)
9 Jan 34.5 °C 14 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
10 Jan 33.6 °C 17 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
11 Jan 33.0 °C 13 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
12 Jan 31.6 °C 11 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
13 Jan 32.9 °C 12 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
14 Jan 35.4 °C 14 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
15 Jan 36.8 °C 17 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
16 Jan 36.8 °C 22 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
17 Jan 37.5 °C 20 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
18 Jan after 35.9 °C 17 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
19 Jan after 33.7 °C 15 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
20 Jan after 33.4 °C 16 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
21 Jan after 33.1 °C 19 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
22 Jan after 33.1 °C 14 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
23 Jan after 32.2 °C 13 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
24 Jan after 32.4 °C 14 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
25 Jan after 33.0 °C 16 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
26 Jan after 33.8 °C 15 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
27 Jan after 34.6 °C 16 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 2 Jan 2020
After · 24 Jan 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 · 296Every 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 9 January 2020 and 17 January 2020: 9 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 12,347 hectares (123.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Maridi (12,439 ha, 1.6 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.5 °C, humidity dropped to 11 % and gusts hit 39 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 43, 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.