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Melut fire, December 2023 Melut

Out · last detection 7 Jan 2024, 22:45 UTC

The fire started on 31 December 2023 in Melut, South Sudan, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 9,844 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 89th largest in Upper Nile since 2016 (of 284 with a page). Number 34 in South Sudan in 2023, of 106.

Burnt area
9,844ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
7days
31 Dec 2023 – 6 Jan 2024
Municipalities hit
1
counties
Started on
31 Dec
2023
Heat detections
452
in a single hotspot: 140 MW
Danger at start
59
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
5.6GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

7 Jan 2024
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 31 Dec6 Jan

How it evolved, day by day

311234567

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

The weather it burned in

37°high
45km/h · peak gust
10%lowest humidity

It had gone 46 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

31% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 3,063 ha in 2016, 29 ha in 2019.

What happened to each town

  1. Melut where it started
    9,904 ha reached on 24 Dec
    1.4 %

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)
31 Dec 36.3 °C 11 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
1 Jan 36.9 °C 14 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
2 Jan 37.1 °C 13 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
3 Jan 36.2 °C 10 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
4 Jan 36.8 °C 11 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
5 Jan 35.3 °C 11 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 64
6 Jan 36.0 °C 11 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
7 Jan after 36.6 °C 11 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
8 Jan after 37.3 °C 10 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
9 Jan after 38.3 °C 12 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
10 Jan after 38.7 °C 13 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 63
11 Jan after 38.4 °C 13 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 66
12 Jan after 37.0 °C 14 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 65
13 Jan after 37.3 °C 13 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
14 Jan after 37.4 °C 14 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 64
15 Jan after 36.4 °C 9 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 70
16 Jan after 36.0 °C 13 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 66

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 24 Dec 2023
After · 13 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 · 452Every 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 31 December 2023 and 6 January 2024: 7 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 9,844 hectares (98.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Melut (9,904 ha, 1.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.1 °C, humidity dropped to 10 % and gusts hit 45 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.