Nzara fire, 2 January 2022 Nzara
The fire started on 2 January 2022 in Nzara, South Sudan, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,253 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 339th largest in Western Equatoria since 2016 (of 361 with a page). Number 112 in South Sudan in 2022, of 124.
Compare with…
Suggestions: Nzara · 2019Nzara · 2017Nzara · 2020Yambio · 2026
- Burnt area
- 5,253ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 3days
- 2 Jan 2022 – 4 Jan 2022
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- counties
- Started on
- 2 Jan
- 2022
- Heat detections
- 185
- in a single hotspot: 186 MW
- Danger at start
- 38
- Very high · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 830MW
- detected power per day, on average
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 32 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.0 mm on 13 Jan.
This area had burned before
94% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,823 ha in 2016, 2,319 ha in 2017, 2,892 ha in 2019, 2,866 ha in 2020. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 4,959 ha that had burned before.
- 1,349 ha Nzara fire, December 2019 51,661 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 655 ha Nzara fire, December 2017 6,228 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 416 ha Nzara fire, December 2020 11,803 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
How big is it?
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Paris boundary: geoBoundaries · Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière (IGN-F) (Etalab Open License 2.0).
Madrid boundary: geoBoundaries · Open Data ESRI, IGN Central Registry of Cartography Area (CC BY 4.0).
Berlin boundary: geoBoundaries · Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy (dl-de/by-2-0).
This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.
What happened to each town
-
Nzara where it started5,293 ha reached on 2 Jan0.8 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2 Jan | 35.3 °C | 18 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 38 |
| 3 Jan | 34.7 °C | 13 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 4 Jan | 32.9 °C | 16 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 5 Jan after | 34.1 °C | 15 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 6 Jan after | 35.5 °C | 15 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 7 Jan after | 36.6 °C | 18 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 8 Jan after | 36.8 °C | 16 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 9 Jan after | 37.0 °C | 19 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 10 Jan after | 37.0 °C | 20 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 11 Jan after | 36.5 °C | 24 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 12 Jan after | 37.9 °C | 16 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 13 Jan after | 35.7 °C | 27 % | 34 km/h | 1.0 mm | High 32 |
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.
Detections table · 185Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 51,661 haNzaraDecember 2019 · 24 days · 4 km away
- 62,632 haYambio2 January 2026 · 16 days · 30 km away
- 35,433 haEzo20 December 2021 · 22 days · 32 km away
- 69,706 haYambio13 December 2018 · 26 days · 34 km away
- 91,824 haNagero20 December 2024 · 29 days · 36 km away
- 120,517 haNzara8 December 2025 · 34 days · 40 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Nzara fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 2 January 2022 and 4 January 2022: 3 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 5,253 hectares (52.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Nzara (5,293 ha, 0.8 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 35.3 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 38 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 46, 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
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
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. 185 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.
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.