How long did the Mayendit fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 4 February 2017 and 19 February 2017: 16 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 19,021 hectares (190.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 2 municipalities: Mayendit (17,870 ha, 5.8 %); Panyijiar (1,265 ha, 0.2 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 41.3 °C, humidity dropped to 8 % and gusts hit 46 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 70, class Very 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 · 2017-02-04 → 2017-02-19

Mayendit fire, February 2017 Mayendit, Panyijiar

Out · last detection 20 Feb 2017, 11:50 UTC

The fire started on 4 February 2017 in Mayendit, South Sudan, and satellites saw it burning for 16 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 19,021 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 6th largest in Unity since 2016 (of 85 with a page). Number 21 in South Sudan in 2017, of 203.

Burnt area: 19,021ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 16days; 4 Feb 2017 – 19 Feb 2017
Municipalities hit: 2; counties
Started on: 4 Feb; 2017
Heat detections: 699; in a single hotspot: 201 MW
Danger at start: 62; Extreme · FWI index
Energy released: 9.2GW; sum of detected power

Play back 20 Feb 2017

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 4 Feb19 Feb

How it evolved, day by day

45678910111213141516171920

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

The weather it burned in

41°high

46km/h · peak gust

8%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

32% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 6,460 ha in 2016. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 6,076 ha that had burned before.

4,024 ha Panyijiar fire, January 2016 5,782 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire

What happened to each town

Mayendit where it started

17,870 ha reached on 4 Feb

5.8 %
Panyijiar

1,265 ha reached on 5 Feb

0.2 %

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)
4 Feb	38.5 °C	12 %	35 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 62
5 Feb	39.2 °C	11 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 64
6 Feb	39.5 °C	11 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 65
7 Feb	40.3 °C	11 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 65
8 Feb	40.4 °C	17 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 59
9 Feb	40.5 °C	10 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 67
10 Feb	41.0 °C	8 %	46 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 69
11 Feb	41.2 °C	13 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 69
12 Feb	41.3 °C	13 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 65
13 Feb	39.4 °C	10 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 69
14 Feb	36.8 °C	8 %	43 km/h	0.0 mm	Very extreme 70
15 Feb	38.8 °C	13 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 64
16 Feb	38.5 °C	12 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 65
17 Feb	35.9 °C	10 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 70
18 Feb	35.8 °C	9 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 66
19 Feb	37.2 °C	14 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 63
20 Feb after	38.6 °C	14 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 64
21 Feb after	36.9 °C	11 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 59
22 Feb after	38.3 °C	9 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 61
23 Feb after	38.3 °C	5 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 68
24 Feb after	38.3 °C	6 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	Very extreme 73
25 Feb after	38.2 °C	5 %	41 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 69
26 Feb after	38.8 °C	6 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 66
27 Feb after	39.1 °C	7 %	30 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 59
28 Feb after	40.2 °C	14 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 65
1 Mar after	39.4 °C	20 %	32 km/h	0.2 mm	Extreme 57

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 28 Jan 2017

After · 26 Feb 2017

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 · 699Every 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 Mayendit fire last?: GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 4 February 2017 and 19 February 2017: 16 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 19,021 hectares (190.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 2 municipalities: Mayendit (17,870 ha, 5.8 %); Panyijiar (1,265 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 41.3 °C, humidity dropped to 8 % and gusts hit 46 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 70, class Very 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.

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