Wau fire, 22 December 2021 Wau, Tambura
The fire started on 22 December 2021 in Wau, South Sudan, and satellites saw it burning for 23 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 23,675 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 51th largest in Western Bahr el Ghazal since 2016 (of 441 with a page). Number 12 in South Sudan in 2021, of 212.
Compare with…
Suggestions: Wau · 2019Wau · 2016Tambura · 2020Tambura · 2016
- Burnt area
- 23,675ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 23days
- 22 Dec 2021 – 13 Jan 2022
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- counties
- Started on
- 22 Dec
- 2021
- Heat detections
- 846
- in a single hotspot: 280 MW
- Danger at start
- 58
- Extreme · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 291MW
- 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 38 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
95% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 19,197 ha in 2016, 8,437 ha in 2017, 4,306 ha in 2018, 16,606 ha in 2019, 225 ha in 2020, 7,020 ha in 2021. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 22,490 ha that had burned before.
- 16,573 ha Wau fire, December 2019 112,800 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 12,847 ha Wau fire, November 2016 742,600 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 6,996 ha Tambura fire, December 2020 280,755 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 6,318 ha Tambura fire, December 2016 422,275 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 3,142 ha Nagero fire, December 2018 73,772 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 3,080 ha Wau fire, December 2017 7,596 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,386 ha Tambura fire, December 2017 5,366 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 982 ha Wau fire, January 2018 5,127 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
-
Wau where it started22,701 ha reached on 22 Dec1.2 %
-
1,103 ha reached on 2 Jan0.1 %
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 2020Inside 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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 22 Dec | 34.5 °C | 14 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 58 |
| 23 Dec | 35.1 °C | 14 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 55 |
| 24 Dec | 35.5 °C | 10 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 25 Dec | 35.4 °C | 12 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 26 Dec | 35.8 °C | 11 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 27 Dec | 34.8 °C | 15 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 28 Dec | 37.1 °C | 18 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 29 Dec | 35.2 °C | 15 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 30 Dec | 36.5 °C | 18 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 31 Dec | 36.6 °C | 15 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 1 Jan | 35.7 °C | 20 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 2 Jan | 36.3 °C | 11 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 3 Jan | 34.1 °C | 12 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 56 |
| 4 Jan | 33.5 °C | 13 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 55 |
| 5 Jan | 34.6 °C | 12 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 6 Jan | 35.9 °C | 11 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 7 Jan | 37.5 °C | 13 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 8 Jan | 37.7 °C | 14 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 9 Jan | 37.5 °C | 15 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 10 Jan | 38.1 °C | 15 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 11 Jan | 36.7 °C | 17 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 12 Jan | 37.4 °C | 19 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 13 Jan | 37.0 °C | 19 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 14 Jan after | 36.5 °C | 24 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 15 Jan after | 37.2 °C | 22 % | 29 km/h | 0.1 mm | Very high 44 |
| 16 Jan after | 35.2 °C | 26 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 17 Jan after | 34.4 °C | 20 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 18 Jan after | 34.6 °C | 25 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 19 Jan after | 34.5 °C | 12 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 20 Jan after | 32.7 °C | 13 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 21 Jan after | 33.8 °C | 9 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 56 |
| 22 Jan after | 35.0 °C | 9 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 23 Jan after | 36.1 °C | 12 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
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 · 846Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 280,755 haTambura17 December 2020 · 59 days · 19 km away
- 112,800 haWau15 December 2019 · 38 days · 31 km away
- 203,534 haWau6 December 2025 · 53 days · 34 km away
- 73,772 haNagero5 December 2018 · 31 days · 35 km away
- 67,391 haWau8 January 2024 · 26 days · 36 km away
- 64,093 haTambura14 December 2022 · 36 days · 36 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Wau fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 22 December 2021 to 13 January 2022 (23 days). The perimeter dates it from 25 December 2021 to 12 January 2022.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 23,675 hectares (236.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Wau (22,701 ha, 1.2 %); Tambura (1,103 ha, 0.1 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 38.1 °C, humidity dropped to 10 % and gusts hit 41 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 58, 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 · 2 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
- Last day with fire: 12 January 2022 → 13 January 2022.
- Start date: 25 December 2021 → 22 December 2021.
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; 2 polygons grouped in this page.
- Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 25 December 2021 to 12 January 2022. 846 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.
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.