Raga fire, 4 December 2021 Aweil Centre, Raga
The fire started on 4 December 2021 in Raga, South Sudan, and satellites saw it burning for 11 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 36,949 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 30th largest in Western Bahr el Ghazal since 2016 (of 432 with a page). Number 4 in South Sudan in 2021, of 212.
Compare with…
- Burnt area
- 36,949ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 11days
- 4 Dec 2021 – 14 Dec 2021
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- counties
- Started on
- 4 Dec
- 2021
- Heat detections
- 1,140
- in a single hotspot: 0 MW
- Danger at start
- 47
- 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 28 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
96% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 22,033 ha in 2016, 19,774 ha in 2017, 24,067 ha in 2019, 19,659 ha in 2020. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 35,474 ha that had burned before.
- 24,021 ha Raga fire, December 2019 58,291 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 13,993 ha Aweil Centre fire, November 2017 42,442 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 6,946 ha Raga fire, December 2016 62,637 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 5,104 ha Aweil Centre fire, November 2016 33,836 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 3,673 ha Aweil Centre fire, December 2020 5,217 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 3,535 ha Raga fire, November 2017 6,696 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,932 ha Aweil Centre fire, November 2020 17,603 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 330 ha Aweil Centre fire, November 2016 7,107 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
-
23,306 ha2.1 %
-
Raga where it started13,858 ha0.2 %
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 2020Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2020, 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.
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4 Dec | 38.1 °C | 14 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 5 Dec | 38.7 °C | 13 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 6 Dec | 36.6 °C | 13 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 50 |
| 7 Dec | 38.1 °C | 13 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 8 Dec | 38.2 °C | 11 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 9 Dec | 36.2 °C | 13 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 55 |
| 10 Dec | 36.2 °C | 13 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 11 Dec | 37.6 °C | 15 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 12 Dec | 37.8 °C | 14 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 13 Dec | 37.9 °C | 13 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 14 Dec | 38.1 °C | 13 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 15 Dec after | 37.3 °C | 14 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 56 |
| 16 Dec after | 35.9 °C | 13 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 58 |
| 17 Dec after | 34.9 °C | 12 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 56 |
| 18 Dec after | 34.2 °C | 14 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 55 |
| 19 Dec after | 34.3 °C | 14 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 20 Dec after | 34.7 °C | 13 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 55 |
| 21 Dec after | 33.3 °C | 11 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 58 |
| 22 Dec after | 33.8 °C | 14 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 56 |
| 23 Dec after | 34.4 °C | 13 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 24 Dec after | 34.8 °C | 10 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
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.
Detections table · 0Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 58,291 haRaga1 December 2019 · 18 days · 5 km away
- 17,603 haAweil Centre27 November 2020 · 18 days · 15 km away
- 62,637 haRaga6 December 2016 · 23 days · 16 km away
- 33,836 haAweil Centre24 November 2016 · 26 days · 17 km away
- 41,974 haAweil Centre5 December 2024 · 29 days · 18 km away
- 42,442 haAweil Centre19 November 2017 · 25 days · 21 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Raga fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 4 December 2021 and 14 December 2021: 11 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 36,949 hectares (369.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Aweil Centre (23,306 ha, 2.1 %); Raga (13,858 ha, 0.2 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 38.7 °C, humidity dropped to 11 % and gusts hit 38 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 55, 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 · 5 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
- Last day with fire: 21 December 2021 → 14 December 2021.
- Start date: 27 November 2021 → 4 December 2021.
- Name: Aweil Centre → Raga.
- Last day with fire: 14 December 2021 → 21 December 2021.
- Start date: 4 December 2021 → 27 November 2021.
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.
- Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. No 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 2020, 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.