Skip to content
worldfires
SD · Sudan · →

Melit fire, 4 January 2021 Melit

Out · last detection 6 Jan 2021, 11:01 UTC

The fire started on 4 January 2021 in Melit, Sudan, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 12,964 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 3th largest in North Darfur since 2016 (of 140 with a page). Number 5 in Sudan in 2021, of 149.

Burnt area
12,964ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
3days
4 Jan 2021 – 6 Jan 2021
Municipalities hit
1
localities
Started on
4 Jan
2021
Heat detections
304
in a single hotspot: 90 MW
Danger at start
54
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
2.4GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

6 Jan 2021
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 4 Jan6 Jan

How it evolved, day by day

456

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

The weather it burned in

30°high
44km/h · peak gust
9%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

5% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 614 ha in 2019, 11 ha in 2020.

What happened to each town

  1. Melit where it started
    13,027 ha reached on 4 Jan
    0.8 %

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)
4 Jan 29.5 °C 17 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
5 Jan 30.1 °C 12 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
6 Jan 29.6 °C 9 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 63
7 Jan after 29.0 °C 13 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 73
8 Jan after 28.2 °C 15 % 55 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 74
9 Jan after 27.8 °C 12 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 64
10 Jan after 26.8 °C 13 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 69
11 Jan after 26.8 °C 17 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
12 Jan after 28.5 °C 17 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
13 Jan after 28.8 °C 14 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
14 Jan after 27.6 °C 13 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
15 Jan after 25.7 °C 13 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
16 Jan after 26.4 °C 8 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 28 Dec 2020
After · 13 Jan 2021

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 · 304Every 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 Sudan ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Melit fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 4 January 2021 and 6 January 2021: 3 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 only entered Melit (13,027 ha, 0.8 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 30.1 °C, humidity dropped to 9 % and gusts hit 44 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 63, class Extreme.
Where does this data come from?
From the GWIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of 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.

Report an error
What do you think is wrong?

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.