Skip to content
worldfires
en
SS · South Sudan · →

Yei fire, December 2016 Yei

Out · last detection 23 Jan 2017, 23:12 UTC

The fire started on 30 December 2016 in Yei, South Sudan, and satellites saw it burning for 27 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 10,975 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 14th largest in Central Equatoria since 2016 (of 84 with a page). Number 67 in South Sudan in 2016, of 246.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Yei · 2016Lainya · 2016Yei · 2016Yei · 2023

Burnt area
10,975ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
27days
30 Dec 2016 – 25 Jan 2017
Municipalities hit
1
counties
Started on
30 Dec
2016
Heat detections
477
in a single hotspot: 195 MW
Danger at start
35
High · FWI index
Average daily power
359MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 30 Dec25 Jan
23 Jan 2017

How it evolved, day by day

30 Dec 2016 · 470 MW · 39 31 Dec 2016 · 6 MW · 2 3 Jan 2017 · 105 MW · 8 4 Jan 2017 · 67 MW · 9 5 Jan 2017 · 106 MW · 16 6 Jan 2017 · 48 MW · 12 7 Jan 2017 · 677 MW · 41 8 Jan 2017 · 568 MW · 26 9 Jan 2017 · 5 MW · 1 10 Jan 2017 · 832 MW · 43 11 Jan 2017 · 152 MW · 13 13 Jan 2017 · 576 MW · 27 14 Jan 2017 · 345 MW · 48 15 Jan 2017 · 1,250 MW · 70 16 Jan 2017 · 1,656 MW · 46 17 Jan 2017 · 95 MW · 21 18 Jan 2017 · 591 MW · 27 19 Jan 2017 · 77 MW · 6 20 Jan 2017 · 74 MW · 2 21 Jan 2017 · 163 MW · 11 22 Jan 2017 · 12 MW · 3 23 Jan 2017 · 23 MW · 6
30 Dec 5 Jan 9 Jan 14 Jan 16 Jan 18 Jan 22 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

38°high
44km/h · peak gust
9%lowest humidity

It had gone 3 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

55% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 6,254 ha in 2016.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 6.9% of the area of London (110 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. Yei where it started
    11,051 ha reached on 30 Dec
    1.6 %

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)
30 Dec 34.7 °C 22 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
31 Dec 34.9 °C 18 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
1 Jan 33.6 °C 21 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
2 Jan 34.8 °C 20 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
3 Jan 34.7 °C 18 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
4 Jan 34.8 °C 18 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
5 Jan 34.9 °C 12 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
6 Jan 35.8 °C 10 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
7 Jan 36.0 °C 9 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
8 Jan 35.8 °C 12 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
9 Jan 35.2 °C 13 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
10 Jan 35.1 °C 13 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
11 Jan 35.6 °C 11 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
12 Jan 35.8 °C 14 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
13 Jan 36.2 °C 10 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
14 Jan 36.3 °C 10 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
15 Jan 37.3 °C 11 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
16 Jan 37.9 °C 10 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
17 Jan 37.8 °C 10 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
18 Jan 36.8 °C 12 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
19 Jan 37.1 °C 13 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
20 Jan 37.8 °C 14 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
21 Jan 36.9 °C 15 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
22 Jan 38.1 °C 15 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
23 Jan 38.0 °C 14 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
24 Jan 35.4 °C 19 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
25 Jan 35.1 °C 22 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
26 Jan after 34.8 °C 27 % 40 km/h 0.7 mm Very high 40
27 Jan after 35.7 °C 22 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
28 Jan after 35.0 °C 20 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
29 Jan after 34.8 °C 18 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
30 Jan after 35.7 °C 18 % 20 km/h 0.1 mm Very high 39
31 Jan after 34.9 °C 25 % 34 km/h 0.1 mm Very high 45
1 Feb after 36.1 °C 14 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
2 Feb after 35.2 °C 7 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
3 Feb after 34.9 °C 14 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
4 Feb after 35.9 °C 14 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 23 Dec 2016
After · 1 Feb 2017

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 · 477Every 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 Yei fire last?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 30 December 2016 to 25 January 2017 (27 days). The perimeter dates it from 6 January 2017 to 19 January 2017.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 10,975 hectares (109.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Yei (11,051 ha, 1.6 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 38.1 °C, humidity dropped to 9 % and gusts hit 44 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 · 2 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
  1. Last day with fire: 19 January 2017 → 25 January 2017.
  2. Start date: 6 January 2017 → 30 December 2016.

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.

Report an error
What do you think is wrong?

We will only use your email to reply about this report. Privacy.

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 6 January 2017 to 19 January 2017. 477 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.