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Wau fire, 14 December 2019 Wau, Tambura

Out · last detection 17 Jan 2020, 11:55 UTC

The fire started on 14 December 2019 in Wau, South Sudan, and satellites saw it burning for 35 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 62,112 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 18th largest in Western Bahr el Ghazal since 2016 (of 430 with a page). Number 4 in South Sudan in 2019, of 150.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Wau · 2016Wau · 2017Wau · 2018Tambura · 2016

Burnt area
62,112ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
35days
14 Dec 2019 – 17 Jan 2020
Municipalities hit
2
counties
Started on
14 Dec
2019
Heat detections
2,268
in a single hotspot: 259 MW
Danger at start
32
High · FWI index
Average daily power
657MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 14 Dec17 Jan
17 Jan 2020

How it evolved, day by day

14 Dec 2019 · 6 MW · 6 15 Dec 2019 · 710 MW · 81 16 Dec 2019 · 1,310 MW · 108 17 Dec 2019 · 547 MW · 115 18 Dec 2019 · 837 MW · 167 19 Dec 2019 · 2,308 MW · 164 20 Dec 2019 · 2,482 MW · 128 21 Dec 2019 · 448 MW · 34 22 Dec 2019 · 547 MW · 64 23 Dec 2019 · 999 MW · 60 24 Dec 2019 · 2,751 MW · 242 25 Dec 2019 · 1,211 MW · 102 26 Dec 2019 · 570 MW · 122 27 Dec 2019 · 375 MW · 62 28 Dec 2019 · 277 MW · 59 29 Dec 2019 · 702 MW · 99 30 Dec 2019 · 160 MW · 67 31 Dec 2019 · 589 MW · 62 1 Jan 2020 · 456 MW · 54 2 Jan 2020 · 3,109 MW · 107 3 Jan 2020 · 88 MW · 59 4 Jan 2020 · 12 MW · 13 5 Jan 2020 · 228 MW · 40 6 Jan 2020 · 158 MW · 17 7 Jan 2020 · 161 MW · 31 8 Jan 2020 · 196 MW · 43 9 Jan 2020 · 132 MW · 38 10 Jan 2020 · 119 MW · 35 11 Jan 2020 · 54 MW · 16 12 Jan 2020 · 1,038 MW · 29 13 Jan 2020 · 363 MW · 24 14 Jan 2020 · 13 MW · 7 15 Jan 2020 · 21 MW · 7 16 Jan 2020 · 16 MW · 4 17 Jan 2020 · 7 MW · 2
14 Dec 19 Dec 24 Dec 29 Dec 2 Jan 3 Jan 8 Jan 13 Jan

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

The weather it burned in

38°high
39km/h · peak gust
9%lowest humidity

It had gone 31 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: 52,693 ha in 2016, 32,398 ha in 2017, 12,521 ha in 2018, 123 ha in 2019. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 55,219 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 39% of the area of London (621 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. Wau where it started
    54,826 ha reached on 14 Dec
    2.8 %
  2. Tambura
    7,642 ha reached on 20 Dec
    0.6 %

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)
14 Dec 35.4 °C 28 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
15 Dec 34.4 °C 33 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
16 Dec 34.8 °C 21 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
17 Dec 34.4 °C 15 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
18 Dec 34.1 °C 16 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
19 Dec 34.4 °C 18 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
20 Dec 34.8 °C 19 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
21 Dec 35.5 °C 19 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
22 Dec 35.8 °C 18 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
23 Dec 36.5 °C 17 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
24 Dec 36.2 °C 20 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
25 Dec 36.6 °C 17 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
26 Dec 35.1 °C 11 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
27 Dec 34.4 °C 10 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
28 Dec 33.4 °C 10 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
29 Dec 34.7 °C 10 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
30 Dec 36.0 °C 10 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
31 Dec 35.8 °C 13 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
1 Jan 36.4 °C 17 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
2 Jan 37.6 °C 17 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
3 Jan 36.8 °C 19 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
4 Jan 34.7 °C 15 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
5 Jan 33.0 °C 16 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
6 Jan 34.2 °C 15 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
7 Jan 34.8 °C 15 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
8 Jan 35.7 °C 13 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
9 Jan 34.2 °C 12 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
10 Jan 34.1 °C 12 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
11 Jan 32.9 °C 10 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
12 Jan 31.8 °C 9 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
13 Jan 33.3 °C 9 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
14 Jan 35.9 °C 12 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
15 Jan 37.6 °C 11 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
16 Jan 38.1 °C 12 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
17 Jan 38.3 °C 12 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
18 Jan after 35.4 °C 13 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
19 Jan after 33.6 °C 14 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
20 Jan after 33.1 °C 14 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
21 Jan after 33.2 °C 12 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
22 Jan after 32.3 °C 10 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
23 Jan after 31.4 °C 10 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
24 Jan after 31.3 °C 10 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
25 Jan after 32.1 °C 11 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
26 Jan after 33.1 °C 12 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
27 Jan after 34.7 °C 12 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 7 Dec 2019
After · 24 Jan 2020

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 · 2,268Every 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?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 14 December 2019 to 17 January 2020 (35 days). The perimeter dates it from 14 December 2019 to 11 January 2020.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 62,112 hectares (621.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Wau (54,826 ha, 2.8 %); Tambura (7,642 ha, 0.6 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 38.3 °C, humidity dropped to 9 % and gusts hit 39 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 56, class Extreme.
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 · 1 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
  1. Last day with fire: 11 January 2020 → 17 January 2020.

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; 3 polygons grouped in this page.
  • Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 14 December 2019 to 11 January 2020. 2,268 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.