Wau fire, January 2026 Wau, Tambura
The fire started on 1 January 2026 in Wau, South Sudan, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 12,527 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 106th largest in Western Bahr el Ghazal since 2016 (of 424 with a page). Number 35 in South Sudan in 2026, of 183.
- Burnt area
- 12,527ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 7days
- 1 Jan 2026 – 7 Jan 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- counties
- Started on
- 1 Jan
- 2026
- Heat detections
- 341
- in a single hotspot: 75 MW
- Danger at start
- 42
- Very high · FWI index
- Energy released
- 2.6GW
- 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 56 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: 9,099 ha in 2016, 6,408 ha in 2017, 822 ha in 2018, 5,996 ha in 2019, 6,215 ha in 2020, 3,295 ha in 2021, 4,381 ha in 2022, 3,583 ha in 2023, 3,586 ha in 2024, 2,199 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 12,570 ha that had burned before.
- 8,734 ha Wau fire, November 2016 742,600 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 4,229 ha Tambura fire, December 2020 280,755 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 3,742 ha Wau fire, December 2022 20,602 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,962 ha Wau fire, December 2017 24,971 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,935 ha Wau fire, December 2019 62,112 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 894 ha Wau fire, December 2021 6,887 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 640 ha Wau fire, December 2022 6,545 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 593 ha Wau fire, December 2024 7,832 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
Wau where it started12,208 ha reached on 1 Jan0.6 %
-
384 ha reached on 4 Jan0.0 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 Jan | 34.2 °C | 12 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 2 Jan | 35.7 °C | 16 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 3 Jan | 35.0 °C | 19 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 4 Jan | 35.4 °C | 12 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 5 Jan | 35.5 °C | 15 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 6 Jan | 35.2 °C | 15 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 7 Jan | 35.2 °C | 16 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 8 Jan after | 36.3 °C | 15 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 9 Jan after | 35.9 °C | 17 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 10 Jan after | 34.2 °C | 17 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 11 Jan after | 34.6 °C | 16 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 50 |
| 12 Jan after | 35.8 °C | 16 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 50 |
| 13 Jan after | 35.0 °C | 17 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 14 Jan after | 34.0 °C | 18 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 55 |
| 15 Jan after | 33.7 °C | 18 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 16 Jan after | 33.6 °C | 16 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 17 Jan after | 35.2 °C | 13 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
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 5 January 2026 the air beside the fire reached 79 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 46: 3.1 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 · 341Every 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 1 January 2026 and 7 January 2026: 7 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 12,527 hectares (125.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Wau (12,208 ha, 0.6 %); Tambura (384 ha, 0.0 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 35.7 °C, humidity dropped to 12 % and gusts hit 35 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 48, 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.