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Melut fire, January 2022 Melut

Out · last detection 14 Jan 2022, 00:01 UTC

The fire started on 12 January 2022 in Melut, South Sudan, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,825 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 158th largest in Upper Nile since 2016 (of 284 with a page). Number 70 in South Sudan in 2022, of 124.

Burnt area
6,825ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
3days
12 Jan 2022 – 14 Jan 2022
Municipalities hit
1
counties
Started on
12 Jan
2022
Heat detections
186
in a single hotspot: 175 MW
Danger at start
53
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
5.1GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

14 Jan 2022
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 12 Jan14 Jan

How it evolved, day by day

121314

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

The weather it burned in

40°high
28km/h · peak gust
11%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

53% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 374 ha in 2016, 1,953 ha in 2017, 1,829 ha in 2020. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 3,649 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Melut where it started
    6,861 ha reached on 12 Jan
    1.0 %

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)
12 Jan 40.2 °C 14 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
13 Jan 39.7 °C 14 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
14 Jan 40.0 °C 11 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
15 Jan after 38.5 °C 14 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
16 Jan after 38.4 °C 14 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 66
17 Jan after 33.2 °C 15 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
18 Jan after 33.2 °C 10 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
19 Jan after 32.0 °C 11 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 65
20 Jan after 31.9 °C 11 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 68
21 Jan after 34.7 °C 12 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 63
22 Jan after 34.7 °C 15 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 64
23 Jan after 36.3 °C 11 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
24 Jan after 37.4 °C 11 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 65

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 5 Jan 2022
After · 21 Jan 2022

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 · 186Every 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 12 January 2022 and 14 January 2022: 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 6,825 hectares (68.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Melut (6,861 ha, 1.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 40.2 °C, humidity dropped to 11 % and gusts hit 28 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 53, 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.