Wau fire, 3 December 2020 Wau
The fire started on 3 December 2020 in Wau, South Sudan, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 8,226 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 208th largest in Western Bahr el Ghazal since 2016 (of 424 with a page). Number 78 in South Sudan in 2020, of 190.
- Burnt area
- 8,226ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 6days
- 3 Dec 2020 – 8 Dec 2020
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- counties
- Started on
- 3 Dec
- 2020
- Heat detections
- 202
- in a single hotspot: 69 MW
- Danger at start
- 35
- High · FWI index
- Energy released
- 1.8GW
- sum of detected power
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 29 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
90% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 4,607 ha in 2016, 3,497 ha in 2017, 4,287 ha in 2019. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 7,371 ha that had burned before.
What happened to each town
-
Wau where it started8,275 ha reached on 4 Dec0.4 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3 Dec | 34.6 °C | 15 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 4 Dec | 34.8 °C | 16 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 5 Dec | 34.9 °C | 18 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 6 Dec | 34.8 °C | 17 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 34 |
| 7 Dec | 35.8 °C | 12 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 8 Dec | 35.3 °C | 16 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 9 Dec after | 35.7 °C | 17 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 10 Dec after | 34.9 °C | 24 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 33 |
| 11 Dec after | 35.9 °C | 21 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 12 Dec after | 36.5 °C | 17 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 37 |
| 13 Dec after | 36.6 °C | 17 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 35 |
| 14 Dec after | 35.4 °C | 20 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | High 36 |
| 15 Dec after | 36.7 °C | 15 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 16 Dec after | 36.1 °C | 12 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 17 Dec after | 34.8 °C | 13 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 18 Dec after | 34.5 °C | 15 % | 32 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.
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 · 202Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Wau fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 3 December 2020 and 8 December 2020: 6 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 8,226 hectares (82.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Wau (8,275 ha, 0.4 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 35.8 °C, humidity dropped to 12 % and gusts hit 34 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 40, 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
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.