Melut fire, May 2024 Melut
The fire started on 1 May 2024 in Melut, South Sudan, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,786 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 210th largest in Upper Nile since 2016 (of 284 with a page). Number 131 in South Sudan in 2024, of 180.
- Burnt area
- 5,786ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 8days
- 1 May 2024 – 8 May 2024
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- counties
- Started on
- 1 May
- 2024
- Heat detections
- 239
- in a single hotspot: 280 MW
- Danger at start
- 62
- Extreme · FWI index
- Energy released
- 9.0GW
- sum of detected power
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone 28 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
51% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,255 ha in 2017, 1,491 ha in 2020, 925 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,930 ha that had burned before.
What happened to each town
-
Melut where it started5,819 ha reached on 30 Apr0.8 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 May | 43.0 °C | 5 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 62 |
| 2 May | 41.2 °C | 11 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 60 |
| 3 May | 42.3 °C | 6 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 58 |
| 4 May | 42.6 °C | 5 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very extreme 71 |
| 5 May | 40.0 °C | 20 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 67 |
| 6 May | 42.0 °C | 15 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 7 May | 42.1 °C | 13 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 56 |
| 8 May | 43.2 °C | 7 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 64 |
| 9 May after | 41.7 °C | 10 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 62 |
| 10 May after | 40.9 °C | 20 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 59 |
| 11 May after | 41.8 °C | 19 % | 44 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 65 |
| 12 May after | 42.1 °C | 20 % | 42 km/h | 0.4 mm | Extreme 65 |
| 13 May after | 42.9 °C | 17 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 65 |
| 14 May after | 41.9 °C | 21 % | 48 km/h | 0.2 mm | Extreme 68 |
| 15 May after | 37.4 °C | 30 % | 44 km/h | 0.6 mm | Very high 50 |
| 16 May after | 39.6 °C | 23 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 17 May after | 41.4 °C | 22 % | 25 km/h | 0.1 mm | Very high 44 |
| 18 May after | 41.0 °C | 23 % | 40 km/h | 0.1 mm | Extreme 52 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
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 · CopernicusOn 2 May 2024 the air beside the fire reached 28 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 25: 1.6 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
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 · 239Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Melut fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 1 May 2024 and 8 May 2024: 8 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 5,786 hectares (57.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Melut (5,819 ha, 0.8 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 43.2 °C, humidity dropped to 5 % and gusts hit 40 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 71, class Very 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.
Report an error
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.