How long did the Nagero fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 9 January 2016 and 21 January 2016: 13 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 7,891 hectares (78.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 2 municipalities: Nagero (7,944 ha, 0.9 %); Wau (4 ha, 0.0 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 38.5 °C, humidity dropped to 7 % and gusts hit 38 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 55, 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.

SS · South Sudan · 2016-01-09 → 2016-01-21

Nagero fire, 9 January 2016 Nagero, Wau

Out · last detection 22 Jan 2016, 11:58 UTC

The fire started on 9 January 2016 in Nagero, South Sudan, and satellites saw it burning for 13 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 7,891 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 172th largest in Western Equatoria since 2016 (of 361 with a page). Number 109 in South Sudan in 2016, of 244.

The power measured by the satellite is low (18.8 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Wau · 2025 Nagero · 2019 Wau · 2016

Burnt area: 7,891ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 13days; 9 Jan 2016 – 21 Jan 2016
Municipalities hit: 2; counties
Started on: 9 Jan; 2016
Heat detections: 264; in a single hotspot: 19 MW
Danger at start: 49; Very high · FWI index
Average daily power: 63MW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 9 Jan21 Jan

Play back 22 Jan 2016

How it evolved, day by day

9 Jan 11 Jan 13 Jan 15 Jan 17 Jan 19 Jan 21 Jan

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

The weather it burned in

38°high

38km/h · peak gust

7%lowest humidity

It had gone 37 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

How big is it?

It burned the equivalent of 5% of the area of London (79 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each town

Nagero where it started

7,944 ha reached on 9 Jan

0.9 %
Wau

4 ha

0.0 %

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	Danger (FWI)
9 Jan	37.9 °C	11 %	35 km/h	Very high 49
10 Jan	37.0 °C	8 %	37 km/h	Extreme 50
11 Jan	37.6 °C	9 %	32 km/h	Very high 49
12 Jan	37.5 °C	10 %	32 km/h	Very high 48
13 Jan	37.1 °C	12 %	35 km/h	Extreme 51
14 Jan	36.7 °C	12 %	35 km/h	Extreme 52
15 Jan	36.5 °C	14 %	35 km/h	Extreme 52
16 Jan	37.1 °C	15 %	35 km/h	Extreme 51
17 Jan	38.5 °C	12 %	32 km/h	Very high 49
18 Jan	38.4 °C	12 %	22 km/h	Very high 48
19 Jan	37.8 °C	10 %	38 km/h	Extreme 55
20 Jan	36.5 °C	10 %	36 km/h	Extreme 55
21 Jan	37.4 °C	7 %	30 km/h	Extreme 53
22 Jan after	38.6 °C	9 %	27 km/h	Extreme 51
23 Jan after	38.4 °C	9 %	28 km/h	Extreme 52
24 Jan after	37.5 °C	8 %	31 km/h	Extreme 55
25 Jan after	34.1 °C	10 %	37 km/h	Extreme 59
26 Jan after	33.2 °C	9 %	39 km/h	Extreme 59
27 Jan after	31.7 °C	9 %	40 km/h	Extreme 60
28 Jan after	32.1 °C	9 %	38 km/h	Extreme 58
29 Jan after	31.7 °C	9 %	39 km/h	Extreme 59
30 Jan after	32.8 °C	10 %	35 km/h	Extreme 56
31 Jan after	34.3 °C	11 %	36 km/h	Extreme 57

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 2 Jan 2016

After · 28 Jan 2016

Before After

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 · 264Every 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 time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

Other fires nearby

All fires in South Sudan ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Nagero fire last?: GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 9 January 2016 and 21 January 2016: 13 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 7,891 hectares (78.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 2 municipalities: Nagero (7,944 ha, 0.9 %); Wau (4 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 38.5 °C, humidity dropped to 7 % and gusts hit 38 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 55, 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

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

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

What do you think is wrong?

Dates or duration Place or towns Burned area Name It was not a wildfire Same fire as another page Something else

What really happened?

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How we know this

Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery.
Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 264 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
We have not matched this page with any official record.
Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.

How we build fire pages: methodology ›

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.

Where it burned