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Nagero fire, 24 December 2017 Ezo, Wulu, Nagero

Out · last detection 12 Jan 2018, 11:37 UTC

The fire started on 24 December 2017 in Nagero, South Sudan, and satellites saw it burning for 20 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 17,311 hectares from heat detections, spread across 4 municipalities.

It is the 64th largest in Western Equatoria since 2016 (of 359 with a page). Number 26 in South Sudan in 2017, of 203.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Nzara · 2016Tonj South · 2016Wulu · 2017Tonj South · 2020

Burnt area
17,311ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
20days
24 Dec 2017 – 12 Jan 2018
Municipalities hit
4
counties
Started on
24 Dec
2017
Heat detections
772
in a single hotspot: 258 MW
Danger at start
50
Very high · FWI index
Average daily power
451MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 24 Dec12 Jan
12 Jan 2018

How it evolved, day by day

24 Dec 2017 · 89 MW · 11 25 Dec 2017 · 81 MW · 14 26 Dec 2017 · 66 MW · 10 27 Dec 2017 · 100 MW · 18 28 Dec 2017 · 422 MW · 55 29 Dec 2017 · 333 MW · 52 30 Dec 2017 · 1,177 MW · 59 31 Dec 2017 · 4,065 MW · 228 1 Jan 2018 · 507 MW · 66 2 Jan 2018 · 1,095 MW · 125 3 Jan 2018 · 297 MW · 79 4 Jan 2018 · 56 MW · 23 5 Jan 2018 · 134 MW · 16 6 Jan 2018 · 35 MW · 8 7 Jan 2018 · 17 MW · 1 8 Jan 2018 · 1 MW · 2 9 Jan 2018 · 1 MW · 1 11 Jan 2018 · 72 MW · 3 12 Jan 2018 · 20 MW · 1
24 Dec 27 Dec 30 Dec 31 Dec 2 Jan 5 Jan 8 Jan 12 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

40°high
39km/h · peak gust
10%lowest humidity

It had gone 38 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

25% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 4,399 ha in 2016.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 11% of the area of London (173 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

  1. Ezo
    7,507 ha reached on 26 Dec
    0.9 %
  2. Wulu
    5,239 ha reached on 29 Dec
    0.4 %
  3. Nagero where it started
    2,899 ha reached on 24 Dec
    0.3 %
  4. Tonj South
    1,791 ha reached on 24 Dec
    0.2 %

Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance runs from the point marking the centre of each area to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.

People and buildings inside the perimeter

GHSL 2015
Built-up area< 0.1 ha
Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2015, satellite-based estimate).

This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned.

Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu

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)
24 Dec 39.7 °C 11 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
25 Dec 37.6 °C 13 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
26 Dec 36.1 °C 16 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
27 Dec 36.4 °C 17 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
28 Dec 37.5 °C 16 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
29 Dec 38.5 °C 13 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
30 Dec 38.4 °C 12 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
31 Dec 37.2 °C 13 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
1 Jan 34.4 °C 14 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
2 Jan 32.6 °C 17 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
3 Jan 33.9 °C 15 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
4 Jan 34.3 °C 14 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
5 Jan 33.4 °C 15 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
6 Jan 33.8 °C 12 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
7 Jan 34.9 °C 11 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
8 Jan 34.8 °C 11 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
9 Jan 34.8 °C 11 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
10 Jan 35.9 °C 12 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
11 Jan 37.2 °C 12 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
12 Jan 37.6 °C 10 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
13 Jan after 38.7 °C 12 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
14 Jan after 38.0 °C 13 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
15 Jan after 36.8 °C 13 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
16 Jan after 35.9 °C 11 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
17 Jan after 36.2 °C 14 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
18 Jan after 37.0 °C 11 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
19 Jan after 37.2 °C 10 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
20 Jan after 36.6 °C 11 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
21 Jan after 37.2 °C 10 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
22 Jan after 38.1 °C 9 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 17 Dec 2017
After · 19 Jan 2018

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 · 772Every 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 Nagero fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 24 December 2017 to 12 January 2018 (20 days). The perimeter dates it from 25 December 2017 to 5 January 2018.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 17,311 hectares (173.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 4 municipalities: Ezo (7,507 ha, 0.9 %); Wulu (5,239 ha, 0.4 %); Nagero (2,899 ha, 0.3 %); Tonj South (1,791 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 39.7 °C, humidity dropped to 10 % and gusts hit 39 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 56, 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

History of this page · 2 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
  1. Last day with fire: 5 January 2018 → 12 January 2018.
  2. Start date: 25 December 2017 → 24 December 2017.

RSS Changes to this page

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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How we know this
  • Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery.
  • Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 25 December 2017 to 5 January 2018. 772 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.
  • Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2015, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.

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.