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Melit fire, 9 December 2024 Melit

Out · last detection 11 Dec 2024, 10:55 UTC

The fire started on 9 December 2024 in Melit, Sudan, and satellites saw it burning for 2 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 3,284 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 46th largest in North Darfur since 2016 (of 140 with a page). Number 28 in Sudan in 2024, of 89.

Burnt area
3,284ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
2days
9 Dec 2024 – 10 Dec 2024
Municipalities hit
1
localities
Started on
9 Dec
2024
Heat detections
120
in a single hotspot: 49 MW
Danger at start
67
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
1.3GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

11 Dec 2024
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 9 Dec10 Dec

How it evolved, day by day

91011

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

The weather it burned in

31°high
50km/h · peak gust
14%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

30% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 563 ha in 2019, 526 ha in 2020. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 996 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Melit where it started
    3,304 ha reached on 9 Dec
    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)
9 Dec 30.8 °C 14 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 67
10 Dec 29.3 °C 16 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 66
11 Dec after 29.4 °C 15 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
12 Dec after 30.0 °C 18 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
13 Dec after 29.4 °C 16 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
14 Dec after 26.4 °C 11 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
15 Dec after 25.3 °C 15 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
16 Dec after 26.4 °C 16 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
17 Dec after 28.7 °C 19 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
18 Dec after 29.6 °C 20 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
19 Dec after 29.7 °C 18 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
20 Dec after 26.3 °C 16 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 2 Dec 2024
After · 17 Dec 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.

The smoke

CAMS · Copernicus

On 8 December 2024 the air beside the fire reached 60 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 42: 2.8 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak60 µg/m³
Days over the guideline6 days
PM10340 µg/m³
Optical depth0.31
78910111213
Good Fair Moderate Poor Very poor Extremely poor

Particles from the Copernicus CAMS model at the centre of the perimeter; these are not measurements in each town. The pale bar is the worst hour, the solid one the daily average.

Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS)

Detections table · 120Every 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 9 December 2024 and 10 December 2024: 2 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 3,284 hectares (32.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Melit (3,304 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 30.8 °C, humidity dropped to 14 % and gusts hit 50 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 67, 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.

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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.