Skip to content
worldfires
SS · South Sudan · →

Wau fire, November 2019 Wau

Out · last detection 14 Dec 2019, 10:53 UTC

The fire started on 29 November 2019 in Wau, South Sudan, and satellites saw it burning for 15 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 8,397 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 195th largest in Western Bahr el Ghazal since 2016 (of 424 with a page). Number 72 in South Sudan in 2019, of 150.

Burnt area
8,397ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
15days
29 Nov 2019 – 13 Dec 2019
Municipalities hit
1
counties
Started on
29 Nov
2019
Heat detections
259
in a single hotspot: 40 MW
Danger at start
25
High · FWI index
Energy released
1.1GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

14 Dec 2019
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 29 Nov13 Dec

How it evolved, day by day

29301234567891011121314

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

The weather it burned in

35°high
35km/h · peak gust
16%lowest humidity

It had gone 21 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

45% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,485 ha in 2016, 2,063 ha in 2017, 481 ha in 2018. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 3,743 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Wau where it started
    8,461 ha reached on 29 Nov
    0.4 %

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)
29 Nov 35.0 °C 23 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
30 Nov 35.1 °C 19 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
1 Dec 35.2 °C 17 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
2 Dec 34.5 °C 21 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
3 Dec 34.6 °C 19 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
4 Dec 35.0 °C 17 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
5 Dec 34.4 °C 16 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
6 Dec 34.6 °C 18 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
7 Dec 34.8 °C 19 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
8 Dec 34.4 °C 20 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
9 Dec 33.9 °C 18 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
10 Dec 34.5 °C 19 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
11 Dec 34.8 °C 28 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
12 Dec 34.1 °C 32 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
13 Dec 35.1 °C 28 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
14 Dec after 35.3 °C 26 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
15 Dec after 34.7 °C 30 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
16 Dec after 34.6 °C 14 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
17 Dec after 33.8 °C 14 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
18 Dec after 33.7 °C 15 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
19 Dec after 34.3 °C 18 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
20 Dec after 34.7 °C 18 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
21 Dec after 35.5 °C 18 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
22 Dec after 35.8 °C 17 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
23 Dec after 36.4 °C 16 % 34 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 · 22 Nov 2019
After · 20 Dec 2019

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 · 259Every 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 29 November 2019 and 13 December 2019: 15 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 8,397 hectares (84.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Wau (8,461 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 35.2 °C, humidity dropped to 16 % and gusts hit 35 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 39, 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
What do you think is wrong?

We will only use your email to reply about this report. Privacy.

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.