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SS · South Sudan · →

Wau fire, 12 December 2018 Wau

Out · last detection 17 Dec 2018, 10:41 UTC

The fire started on 12 December 2018 in Wau, South Sudan, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,486 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 365th largest in Western Bahr el Ghazal since 2016 (of 424 with a page). Number 101 in South Sudan in 2018, of 120.

Burnt area
5,486ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
5days
12 Dec 2018 – 16 Dec 2018
Municipalities hit
1
counties
Started on
12 Dec
2018
Heat detections
215
in a single hotspot: 136 MW
Danger at start
43
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
1.0GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

17 Dec 2018
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 12 Dec16 Dec

How it evolved, day by day

1213141517

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

The weather it burned in

37°high
36km/h · peak gust
11%lowest humidity

It had gone 25 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

99% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 3,034 ha in 2016, 5,877 ha in 2017. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 5,416 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Wau where it started
    5,514 ha reached on 10 Dec
    0.3 %

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)
12 Dec 35.8 °C 11 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
13 Dec 36.1 °C 12 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
14 Dec 35.7 °C 14 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
15 Dec 37.0 °C 15 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
16 Dec 37.3 °C 17 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
17 Dec after 37.7 °C 17 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
18 Dec after 36.1 °C 12 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
19 Dec after 36.3 °C 13 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
20 Dec after 35.6 °C 16 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
21 Dec after 35.4 °C 15 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
22 Dec after 35.0 °C 17 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
23 Dec after 35.0 °C 16 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
24 Dec after 35.4 °C 15 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
25 Dec after 36.3 °C 16 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
26 Dec after 37.1 °C 17 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 5 Dec 2018
After · 23 Dec 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 · 215Every 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 Wau fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 12 December 2018 and 16 December 2018: 5 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 5,486 hectares (54.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Wau (5,514 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.3 °C, humidity dropped to 11 % and gusts hit 36 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 45, 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.

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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.