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Mayendit fire, March 2019 Mayendit, Leer

Out · last detection 11 Mar 2019, 11:06 UTC

The fire started on 3 March 2019 in Mayendit, South Sudan, and satellites saw it burning for 9 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 12,130 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 15th largest in Unity since 2016 (of 85 with a page). Number 38 in South Sudan in 2019, of 150.

Burnt area
12,130ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
9days
3 Mar 2019 – 11 Mar 2019
Municipalities hit
2
counties
Started on
3 Mar
2019
Heat detections
500
in a single hotspot: 197 MW
Danger at start
57
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
6.7GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

11 Mar 2019
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 3 Mar11 Mar

How it evolved, day by day

34567891011

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
44km/h · peak gust
6%lowest humidity

It had gone 3 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

40% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,685 ha in 2016, 1,091 ha in 2017, 3,496 ha in 2018. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 4,902 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Mayendit where it started
    6,218 ha reached on 1 Mar
    2.0 %
  2. Leer
    5,987 ha reached on 3 Mar
    3.6 %

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)
3 Mar 39.4 °C 7 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
4 Mar 40.7 °C 6 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
5 Mar 41.1 °C 10 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 64
6 Mar 40.6 °C 8 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 67
7 Mar 39.1 °C 7 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
8 Mar 39.8 °C 8 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 69
9 Mar 40.3 °C 7 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 66
10 Mar 40.3 °C 8 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
11 Mar 41.2 °C 9 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 68
12 Mar after 41.8 °C 11 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 64
13 Mar after 39.5 °C 16 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
14 Mar after 41.8 °C 13 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
15 Mar after 41.3 °C 8 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 67
16 Mar after 40.6 °C 7 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 66
17 Mar after 40.2 °C 5 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 66
18 Mar after 41.0 °C 7 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 67
19 Mar after 40.6 °C 9 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 68
20 Mar after 41.6 °C 6 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
21 Mar after 42.9 °C 7 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 67

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 24 Feb 2019
After · 18 Mar 2019

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 · 500Every 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 Mayendit fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 3 March 2019 and 11 March 2019: 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 12,130 hectares (121.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Mayendit (6,218 ha, 2.0 %); Leer (5,987 ha, 3.6 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 41.2 °C, humidity dropped to 6 % and gusts hit 44 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 69, 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.