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Maridi fire, 16 January 2020 Maridi

Out · last detection 29 Jan 2020, 11:30 UTC

The fire started on 16 January 2020 in Maridi, South Sudan, and satellites saw it burning for 13 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 13,665 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 94th largest in Western Equatoria since 2016 (of 361 with a page). Number 28 in South Sudan in 2020, of 190.

Burnt area
13,665ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
13days
16 Jan 2020 – 28 Jan 2020
Municipalities hit
1
counties
Started on
16 Jan
2020
Heat detections
527
in a single hotspot: 145 MW
Danger at start
42
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
4.5GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

29 Jan 2020
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 16 Jan28 Jan

How it evolved, day by day

16181920212223242526272829

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
38km/h · peak gust
13%lowest humidity

It had gone 30 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

85% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 10,411 ha in 2016, 1,434 ha in 2017, 5,882 ha in 2018. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 11,631 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Maridi where it started
    13,763 ha reached on 9 Jan
    1.8 %

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)
16 Jan 37.0 °C 22 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
17 Jan 37.7 °C 20 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
18 Jan 36.1 °C 17 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
19 Jan 33.9 °C 15 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
20 Jan 33.6 °C 16 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
21 Jan 33.3 °C 19 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
22 Jan 33.3 °C 14 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
23 Jan 32.4 °C 13 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
24 Jan 32.6 °C 14 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
25 Jan 33.2 °C 16 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
26 Jan 34.0 °C 15 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
27 Jan 34.8 °C 16 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
28 Jan 35.9 °C 13 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
29 Jan after 35.9 °C 22 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
30 Jan after 35.8 °C 23 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
31 Jan after 34.1 °C 26 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
1 Feb after 31.2 °C 37 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
2 Feb after 37.2 °C 16 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
3 Feb after 37.0 °C 16 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
4 Feb after 32.7 °C 23 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
5 Feb after 33.0 °C 27 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
6 Feb after 35.5 °C 28 % 30 km/h 0.2 mm Very high 39
7 Feb after 35.8 °C 28 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 9 Jan 2020
After · 4 Feb 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 · 527Every 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 16 January 2020 and 28 January 2020: 13 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 13,665 hectares (136.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Maridi (13,763 ha, 1.8 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.7 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 38 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 45, 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.