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Mayendit fire, January 2024 Mayendit, Rumbek North

Out · last detection 20 Jan 2024, 11:06 UTC

The fire started on 10 January 2024 in Mayendit, South Sudan, and satellites saw it burning for 11 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 12,964 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 12th largest in Unity since 2016 (of 85 with a page). Number 36 in South Sudan in 2024, of 180.

Burnt area
12,964ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
11days
10 Jan 2024 – 20 Jan 2024
Municipalities hit
2
counties
Started on
10 Jan
2024
Heat detections
407
in a single hotspot: 160 MW
Danger at start
58
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
6.1GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

20 Jan 2024
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 10 Jan20 Jan

How it evolved, day by day

1011121314151617181920

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

The weather it burned in

39°high
41km/h · peak gust
7%lowest humidity

It had gone 56 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

77% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 5,806 ha in 2017, 592 ha in 2018, 1,238 ha in 2019, 1,636 ha in 2020, 1,492 ha in 2021, 3,015 ha in 2022, 4,080 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 9,971 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Mayendit where it started
    9,276 ha reached on 10 Jan
    3.0 %
  2. Rumbek North
    3,767 ha reached on 11 Jan
    0.9 %

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)
10 Jan 38.8 °C 13 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
11 Jan 38.9 °C 14 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
12 Jan 37.8 °C 12 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
13 Jan 37.6 °C 11 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
14 Jan 38.8 °C 11 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
15 Jan 37.6 °C 9 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 64
16 Jan 36.5 °C 8 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
17 Jan 36.2 °C 11 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
18 Jan 36.0 °C 10 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
19 Jan 36.5 °C 7 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
20 Jan 37.0 °C 7 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
21 Jan after 37.1 °C 8 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
22 Jan after 38.7 °C 9 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
23 Jan after 38.8 °C 11 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
24 Jan after 39.1 °C 13 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
25 Jan after 38.9 °C 12 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
26 Jan after 36.6 °C 10 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 70
27 Jan after 34.7 °C 9 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 66
28 Jan after 35.5 °C 10 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 64
29 Jan after 36.6 °C 9 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
30 Jan after 37.8 °C 10 % 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 · 3 Jan 2024
After · 27 Jan 2024

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 · 407Every 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 10 January 2024 and 20 January 2024: 11 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 12,964 hectares (129.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Mayendit (9,276 ha, 3.0 %); Rumbek North (3,767 ha, 0.9 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 38.9 °C, humidity dropped to 7 % and gusts hit 41 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 64, 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.