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Nzara fire, 17 December 2021 Nzara, Yambio

Out · last detection 28 Dec 2021, 11:25 UTC

The fire started on 17 December 2021 in Nzara, South Sudan, and satellites saw it burning for 15 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,086 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 348th largest in Western Equatoria since 2016 (of 359 with a page). Number 208 in South Sudan in 2021, of 212.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Nzara · 2019Nzara · 2020Yambio · 2018Yambio · 2026

Burnt area
5,086ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
15days
17 Dec 2021 – 31 Dec 2021
Municipalities hit
2
counties
Started on
17 Dec
2021
Heat detections
154
in a single hotspot: 182 MW
Danger at start
44
Very high · FWI index
Average daily power
318MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 17 Dec31 Dec
28 Dec 2021

How it evolved, day by day

17 Dec 2021 · 3 MW · 1 18 Dec 2021 · 53 MW · 6 21 Dec 2021 · 6 MW · 6 22 Dec 2021 · 1,968 MW · 96 23 Dec 2021 · 439 MW · 36 24 Dec 2021 · 1 MW · 1 25 Dec 2021 · 63 MW · 7 28 Dec 2021 · 14 MW · 1
17 Dec 21 Dec 22 Dec 23 Dec 25 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
40km/h · peak gust
17%lowest humidity

It had gone 16 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

89% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,703 ha in 2016, 1,416 ha in 2017, 1,677 ha in 2018, 434 ha in 2019, 1,052 ha in 2020. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 4,538 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 3.2% of the area of London (51 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. Nzara where it started
    4,883 ha reached on 17 Dec
    0.8 %
  2. Yambio
    240 ha reached on 23 Dec
    0.0 %

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 2020
Built-up area< 0.1 ha
Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2020, 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)
17 Dec 35.9 °C 17 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
18 Dec 35.8 °C 24 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
19 Dec 35.2 °C 19 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
20 Dec 33.8 °C 18 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
21 Dec 32.1 °C 18 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
22 Dec 34.6 °C 20 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
23 Dec 34.9 °C 20 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
24 Dec 34.6 °C 20 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
25 Dec 36.2 °C 19 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
26 Dec 34.6 °C 17 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
27 Dec 33.7 °C 32 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
28 Dec 35.5 °C 25 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
29 Dec 34.3 °C 25 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
30 Dec 35.9 °C 21 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
31 Dec 35.4 °C 22 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
1 Jan after 35.0 °C 26 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
2 Jan after 35.5 °C 18 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
3 Jan after 34.9 °C 13 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
4 Jan after 33.1 °C 16 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
5 Jan after 34.3 °C 15 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
6 Jan after 35.7 °C 15 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
7 Jan after 36.8 °C 18 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
8 Jan after 37.0 °C 16 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
9 Jan after 37.2 °C 19 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
10 Jan after 37.2 °C 20 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 10 Dec 2021
After · 7 Jan 2022

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 · 154Every 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 Nzara fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 17 December 2021 to 31 December 2021 (15 days). The perimeter dates it from 21 December 2021 to 25 December 2021.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 5,086 hectares (50.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Nzara (4,883 ha, 0.8 %); Yambio (240 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.2 °C, humidity dropped to 17 % and gusts hit 40 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 47, class Very 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

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: 25 December 2021 → 31 December 2021.
  2. Start date: 21 December 2021 → 17 December 2021.

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 21 December 2021 to 25 December 2021. 154 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 2020, 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.