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Melut fire, January 2020 Melut, Baliet

Out · last detection 12 Jan 2020, 11:50 UTC

The fire started on 4 January 2020 in Melut, South Sudan, and satellites saw it burning for 9 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 21,878 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 29th largest in Upper Nile since 2016 (of 284 with a page). Number 11 in South Sudan in 2020, of 190.

Burnt area
21,878ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
9days
4 Jan 2020 – 12 Jan 2020
Municipalities hit
2
counties
Started on
4 Jan
2020
Heat detections
623
in a single hotspot: 59 MW
Danger at start
58
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
2.9GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

12 Jan 2020
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 4 Jan12 Jan

How it evolved, day by day

456789101112

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

The weather it burned in

36°high
48km/h · peak gust
11%lowest humidity

It had gone 59 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

37% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 5,048 ha in 2016, 1,573 ha in 2017, 2,977 ha in 2019. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 8,044 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Melut where it started
    11,697 ha reached on 4 Jan
    1.7 %
  2. Baliet
    10,319 ha reached on 4 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)
4 Jan 33.4 °C 18 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
5 Jan 31.7 °C 20 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
6 Jan 34.0 °C 14 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
7 Jan 35.7 °C 15 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
8 Jan 34.7 °C 13 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
9 Jan 33.4 °C 12 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
10 Jan 31.5 °C 11 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
11 Jan 30.7 °C 11 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
12 Jan 30.4 °C 12 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
13 Jan after 33.2 °C 16 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
14 Jan after 35.6 °C 13 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
15 Jan after 37.3 °C 13 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
16 Jan after 37.6 °C 14 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
17 Jan after 36.5 °C 16 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
18 Jan after 34.7 °C 14 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 63
19 Jan after 33.4 °C 17 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 63
20 Jan after 33.6 °C 20 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
21 Jan after 32.9 °C 13 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
22 Jan after 31.7 °C 15 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 28 Dec 2019
After · 19 Jan 2020

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 · 623Every 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 Melut fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 4 January 2020 and 12 January 2020: 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 21,878 hectares (218.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Melut (11,697 ha, 1.7 %); Baliet (10,319 ha, 0.9 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 35.7 °C, humidity dropped to 11 % and gusts hit 48 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 62, 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.