How long did the Nzara fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 5 December 2016 and 11 December 2016: 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 12,256 hectares (122.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 2 municipalities: Yambio (9,470 ha, 1.1 %); Nzara (2,875 ha, 0.4 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 36.3 °C, humidity dropped to 18 % and gusts hit 34 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 34, class High.

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 · 2016-12-05 → 2016-12-11

Nzara fire, 5 December 2016 Yambio, Nzara

Out · last detection 12 Dec 2016, 23:00 UTC

The fire started on 5 December 2016 in Nzara, South Sudan, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 12,256 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 108th largest in Western Equatoria since 2016 (of 359 with a page). Number 55 in South Sudan in 2016, of 244.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Yambio · 2018 Nzara · 2019 Yambio · 2026

Burnt area: 12,256ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 7days; 5 Dec 2016 – 11 Dec 2016
Municipalities hit: 2; counties
Started on: 5 Dec; 2016
Heat detections: 377; in a single hotspot: 0 MW
Danger at start: 29; High · FWI index
Average daily power: 760MW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 5 Dec11 Dec

Play back 12 Dec 2016

How it evolved, day by day

5 Dec 7 Dec 8 Dec 9 Dec 11 Dec

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

The weather it burned in

36°high

34km/h · peak gust

18%lowest humidity

It had gone 0 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

How big is it?

It burned the equivalent of 7.7% of the area of London (123 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

Yambio

9,470 ha

1.1 %
Nzara where it started

2,875 ha

0.4 %

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.

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)
5 Dec	35.4 °C	24 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	High 29
6 Dec	36.3 °C	18 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
7 Dec	32.7 °C	33 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
8 Dec	34.8 °C	23 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
9 Dec	35.3 °C	21 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	High 32
10 Dec	35.6 °C	21 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	High 34
11 Dec	34.0 °C	25 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31
12 Dec after	33.7 °C	33 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	High 31
13 Dec after	33.2 °C	34 %	31 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
14 Dec after	34.2 °C	29 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	High 30
15 Dec after	30.5 °C	49 %	23 km/h	0.3 mm	High 23
16 Dec after	34.1 °C	26 %	24 km/h	0.0 mm	High 28
17 Dec after	35.1 °C	20 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 39
18 Dec after	34.8 °C	18 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
19 Dec after	35.6 °C	21 %	37 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
20 Dec after	35.4 °C	21 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
21 Dec after	35.6 °C	22 %	38 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 43

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 28 Nov 2016

After · 18 Dec 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 · 0Every 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 Nzara fire last?: GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 5 December 2016 and 11 December 2016: 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 12,256 hectares (122.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 2 municipalities: Yambio (9,470 ha, 1.1 %); Nzara (2,875 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 36.3 °C, humidity dropped to 18 % and gusts hit 34 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 34, class High.
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 ↗

History of this page · 5 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.

27 October 2026 Last day with fire: 18 December 2016 → 11 December 2016.
27 October 2026 Start date: 28 November 2016 → 5 December 2016.
27 October 2026 Name: Yambio → Nzara.
26 October 2026 Last day with fire: 11 December 2016 → 18 December 2016.
26 October 2026 Start date: 5 December 2016 → 28 November 2016.

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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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; 2 polygons grouped in this page.
Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. No 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