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Yei fire, January 2018 Yei, Maridi

Out · last detection 26 Jan 2018, 23:12 UTC

The fire started on 12 January 2018 in Yei, South Sudan, and satellites saw it burning for 14 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 9,379 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 22th largest in Central Equatoria since 2016 (of 84 with a page). Number 37 in South Sudan in 2018, of 120.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Yei · 2023Maridi · 2022Yei · 2016Maridi · 2016

Burnt area
9,379ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
14days
12 Jan 2018 – 25 Jan 2018
Municipalities hit
2
counties
Started on
12 Jan
2018
Heat detections
384
in a single hotspot: 118 MW
Danger at start
45
Very high · FWI index
Average daily power
230MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 12 Jan25 Jan
26 Jan 2018

How it evolved, day by day

12 Jan 2018 · 72 MW · 11 13 Jan 2018 · 5 MW · 2 14 Jan 2018 · 2 MW · 1 15 Jan 2018 · 306 MW · 28 16 Jan 2018 · 34 MW · 3 17 Jan 2018 · 26 MW · 5 18 Jan 2018 · 27 MW · 3 19 Jan 2018 · 9 MW · 4 20 Jan 2018 · 183 MW · 30 21 Jan 2018 · 836 MW · 59 22 Jan 2018 · 932 MW · 82 23 Jan 2018 · 728 MW · 49 24 Jan 2018 · 245 MW · 51 25 Jan 2018 · 48 MW · 11 26 Jan 2018 · 0 MW · 1
12 Jan 15 Jan 18 Jan 21 Jan 22 Jan 24 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

36°high
47km/h · peak gust
13%lowest humidity

It had gone 41 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

58% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,460 ha in 2016, 5,246 ha in 2017. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 5,438 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 5.9% of the area of London (94 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
    8,073 ha reached on 8 Jan
    1.2 %
  2. Maridi
    1,371 ha reached on 10 Jan
    0.2 %

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)
12 Jan 34.8 °C 16 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
13 Jan 36.4 °C 14 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
14 Jan 34.9 °C 17 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
15 Jan 33.9 °C 16 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
16 Jan 33.8 °C 14 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
17 Jan 33.9 °C 18 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
18 Jan 34.2 °C 16 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
19 Jan 34.8 °C 14 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
20 Jan 34.1 °C 16 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
21 Jan 36.2 °C 13 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
22 Jan 35.7 °C 13 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
23 Jan 36.3 °C 15 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
24 Jan 35.1 °C 15 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
25 Jan 33.8 °C 17 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
26 Jan after 34.6 °C 15 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
27 Jan after 33.7 °C 15 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
28 Jan after 34.5 °C 14 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
29 Jan after 33.7 °C 13 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
30 Jan after 33.4 °C 13 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
31 Jan after 33.8 °C 14 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
1 Feb after 34.7 °C 13 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
2 Feb after 35.6 °C 14 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
3 Feb after 36.0 °C 18 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
4 Feb after 35.7 °C 18 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 5 Jan 2018
After · 1 Feb 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 · 384Every 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?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 12 January 2018 and 25 January 2018: 14 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 9,379 hectares (93.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Yei (8,073 ha, 1.2 %); Maridi (1,371 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.4 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 47 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 57, 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

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. 384 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.