Wau fire, 9 January 2024 Tambura, Wau
The fire started on 9 January 2024 in Wau, South Sudan, and satellites saw it burning for 18 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 67,391 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 16th largest in Western Bahr el Ghazal since 2016 (of 424 with a page). Number 5 in South Sudan in 2024, of 180.
Compare with…
Suggestions: Tambura · 2016Tambura · 2020Tambura · 2022Wau · 2019
- Burnt area
- 67,391ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 18days
- 9 Jan 2024 – 26 Jan 2024
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- counties
- Started on
- 9 Jan
- 2024
- Heat detections
- 3,207
- in a single hotspot: 197 MW
- Danger at start
- 48
- Very high · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 1.3GW
- 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 44 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
100% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 55,631 ha in 2016, 20,795 ha in 2017, 32,667 ha in 2018, 25,986 ha in 2019, 31,916 ha in 2020, 26,452 ha in 2021, 42,768 ha in 2022, 4,055 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 67,116 ha that had burned before.
- 51,161 ha Tambura fire, December 2016 422,275 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 40,557 ha Tambura fire, December 2020 280,755 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 25,032 ha Tambura fire, December 2022 64,093 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 19,457 ha Wau fire, December 2019 112,800 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 11,941 ha Nagero fire, December 2018 73,772 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 11,191 ha Tambura fire, December 2017 25,176 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 7,188 ha Tambura fire, December 2018 15,131 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 4,237 ha Tambura fire, December 2021 19,310 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
-
64,877 ha reached on 9 Jan5.2 %
-
Wau where it started3,012 ha reached on 8 Jan0.2 %
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 2025Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2025, 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. The GHSL 2025 epoch is a projection made from 2020 and earlier data.
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 9 Jan | 36.1 °C | 13 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 10 Jan | 36.6 °C | 13 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 11 Jan | 36.7 °C | 13 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 12 Jan | 36.2 °C | 14 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 13 Jan | 35.8 °C | 12 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 14 Jan | 37.3 °C | 9 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 15 Jan | 35.6 °C | 10 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 55 |
| 16 Jan | 35.3 °C | 10 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 56 |
| 17 Jan | 35.1 °C | 9 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 18 Jan | 34.7 °C | 8 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 50 |
| 19 Jan | 34.5 °C | 8 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 20 Jan | 35.2 °C | 8 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 57 |
| 21 Jan | 35.8 °C | 7 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 56 |
| 22 Jan | 36.9 °C | 7 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 50 |
| 23 Jan | 36.2 °C | 10 % | 20 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 50 |
| 24 Jan | 37.4 °C | 11 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 25 Jan | 37.0 °C | 12 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 26 Jan | 35.2 °C | 12 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 60 |
| 27 Jan after | 34.5 °C | 11 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 58 |
| 28 Jan after | 34.2 °C | 10 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 59 |
| 29 Jan after | 33.2 °C | 11 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 55 |
| 30 Jan after | 36.5 °C | 11 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 56 |
| 31 Jan after | 35.2 °C | 9 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 59 |
| 1 Feb after | 34.3 °C | 9 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 61 |
| 2 Feb after | 33.2 °C | 10 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 60 |
| 3 Feb after | 35.6 °C | 10 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 57 |
| 4 Feb after | 36.1 °C | 9 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 59 |
| 5 Feb after | 35.7 °C | 10 % | 40 km/h | 0.1 mm | Extreme 61 |
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.
The smoke
CAMS · CopernicusOn 17 January 2024 the air beside the fire reached 60 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 38: 2.5 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
Particles from the Copernicus CAMS model at the centre of the perimeter; these are not measurements in each town. The pale bar is the worst hour, the solid one the daily average.
Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS)
Detections table · 3,207Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 122,319 haTambura16 December 2024 · 48 days · 3 km away
- 112,800 haWau16 December 2019 · 30 days · 9 km away
- 64,093 haTambura14 December 2022 · 29 days · 9 km away
- 61,665 haTamburaDecember 2019 · 35 days · 13 km away
- 422,275 haTambura13 December 2016 · 34 days · 23 km away
- 199,786 haTambura7 January 2026 · 17 days · 35 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Wau fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 9 January 2024 and 26 January 2024: 18 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 67,391 hectares (673.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Tambura (64,877 ha, 5.2 %); Wau (3,012 ha, 0.2 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 37.4 °C, humidity dropped to 7 % and gusts hit 41 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 60, 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 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
No changes since 24 October 2026.
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; 4 polygons grouped in this page.
- Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 3,207 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 2025, 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.