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Wulu fire, January 2018 Wulu, Nzara, Yambio

Out · last detection 13 Jan 2018, 11:18 UTC

The fire started on 5 January 2018 in Wulu, South Sudan, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 11,341 hectares from heat detections, spread across 3 municipalities.

It is the 39th largest in Lakes since 2016 (of 158 with a page). Number 28 in South Sudan in 2018, of 120.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Nzara · 2016Nzara · 2016Nzara · 2025Nzara · 2024

Burnt area
11,341ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
8days
5 Jan 2018 – 12 Jan 2018
Municipalities hit
3
counties
Started on
5 Jan
2018
Heat detections
404
in a single hotspot: 118 MW
Danger at start
51
Extreme · FWI index
Average daily power
402MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 5 Jan12 Jan
13 Jan 2018

How it evolved, day by day

5 Jan 2018 · 124 MW · 24 6 Jan 2018 · 779 MW · 63 7 Jan 2018 · 360 MW · 66 8 Jan 2018 · 311 MW · 68 9 Jan 2018 · 1,883 MW · 143 10 Jan 2018 · 82 MW · 22 11 Jan 2018 · 33 MW · 7 12 Jan 2018 · 29 MW · 7 13 Jan 2018 · 14 MW · 3
5 Jan 7 Jan 9 Jan 11 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

37°high
39km/h · peak gust
10%lowest humidity

It had gone 50 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

62% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 7,656 ha in 2016, 20 ha in 2017. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 7,064 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 7.2% of the area of London (113 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. Wulu where it started
    10,682 ha reached on 5 Jan
    0.9 %
  2. Nzara
    634 ha reached on 5 Jan
    0.1 %
  3. Yambio
    99 ha reached on 5 Jan
    0.0 %

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.

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)
5 Jan 33.3 °C 15 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
6 Jan 33.6 °C 12 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
7 Jan 34.6 °C 12 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
8 Jan 34.5 °C 12 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
9 Jan 34.5 °C 11 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
10 Jan 35.6 °C 12 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
11 Jan 36.8 °C 12 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
12 Jan 37.2 °C 10 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
13 Jan after 38.4 °C 12 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
14 Jan after 37.8 °C 12 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
15 Jan after 36.4 °C 13 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
16 Jan after 35.8 °C 11 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
17 Jan after 36.0 °C 14 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
18 Jan after 36.8 °C 11 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
19 Jan after 36.9 °C 10 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
20 Jan after 36.3 °C 11 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
21 Jan after 37.0 °C 10 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
22 Jan after 37.8 °C 9 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 29 Dec 2017
After · 19 Jan 2018

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 · 404Every 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 Wulu fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 5 January 2018 and 12 January 2018: 8 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 11,341 hectares (113.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 3 municipalities: Wulu (10,682 ha, 0.9 %); Nzara (634 ha, 0.1 %); Yambio (99 ha, 0.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.2 °C, humidity dropped to 10 % and gusts hit 39 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 54, 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.

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.
  • Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 404 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.

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.