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Baliet fire, 28 January 2018 Baliet

Out · last detection 2 Feb 2018, 22:39 UTC

The fire started on 28 January 2018 in Baliet, South Sudan, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,862 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 205th largest in Upper Nile since 2016 (of 284 with a page). Number 86 in South Sudan in 2018, of 120.

Burnt area
5,862ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
6days
28 Jan 2018 – 2 Feb 2018
Municipalities hit
1
counties
Started on
28 Jan
2018
Heat detections
176
in a single hotspot: 195 MW
Danger at start
73
Very extreme · FWI index
Energy released
2.9GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

2 Feb 2018
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 28 Jan2 Feb

How it evolved, day by day

28293012

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
52km/h · peak gust
11%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

35% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,171 ha in 2016. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,031 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Baliet where it started
    5,902 ha reached on 28 Jan
    0.5 %

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)
28 Jan 35.7 °C 11 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 73
29 Jan 35.5 °C 12 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 72
30 Jan 34.7 °C 11 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 69
31 Jan 34.8 °C 12 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 71
1 Feb 37.0 °C 11 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 69
2 Feb 37.8 °C 13 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 71
3 Feb after 38.1 °C 17 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 67
4 Feb after 38.6 °C 14 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 68
5 Feb after 39.1 °C 13 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
6 Feb after 40.8 °C 10 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
7 Feb after 41.5 °C 10 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
8 Feb after 41.1 °C 10 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
9 Feb after 40.7 °C 10 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
10 Feb after 41.0 °C 10 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
11 Feb after 40.5 °C 14 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
12 Feb after 41.4 °C 16 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 70

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 21 Jan 2018
After · 9 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 · 176Every 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 Baliet fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 28 January 2018 and 2 February 2018: 6 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 5,862 hectares (58.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Baliet (5,902 ha, 0.5 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.8 °C, humidity dropped to 11 % and gusts hit 52 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 73, class Very 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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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.