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Baliet fire, 19 February 2022 Baliet

Out · last detection 24 Feb 2022, 11:38 UTC

The fire started on 19 February 2022 in Baliet, South Sudan, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 15,221 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 34th largest in Upper Nile since 2016 (of 284 with a page). Number 24 in South Sudan in 2022, of 124.

Burnt area
15,221ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
6days
19 Feb 2022 – 24 Feb 2022
Municipalities hit
1
counties
Started on
19 Feb
2022
Heat detections
583
in a single hotspot: 51 MW
Danger at start
81
Very extreme · FWI index
Energy released
5.0GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

24 Feb 2022
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 19 Feb24 Feb

How it evolved, day by day

192021222324

Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.

The weather it burned in

40°high
55km/h · peak gust
5%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

92% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 7,649 ha in 2016, 5,030 ha in 2017, 1,228 ha in 2018, 2,031 ha in 2019, 8,798 ha in 2020, 2,373 ha in 2021. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 14,015 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Baliet where it started
    15,326 ha reached on 19 Feb
    1.3 %

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)
19 Feb 37.1 °C 5 % 55 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 81
20 Feb 35.9 °C 6 % 55 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 81
21 Feb 36.0 °C 9 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 69
22 Feb 37.0 °C 9 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 65
23 Feb 38.2 °C 9 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 66
24 Feb 40.0 °C 7 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 68
25 Feb after 37.1 °C 6 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 75
26 Feb after 38.1 °C 6 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 72
27 Feb after 39.7 °C 9 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 69
28 Feb after 40.6 °C 8 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 74
1 Mar after 40.1 °C 10 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 70
2 Mar after 41.2 °C 14 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
3 Mar after 39.9 °C 17 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
4 Mar after 41.0 °C 10 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
5 Mar after 41.9 °C 9 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 66
6 Mar after 42.1 °C 10 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 64

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 12 Feb 2022
After · 3 Mar 2022

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 · 583Every 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 19 February 2022 and 24 February 2022: 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 15,221 hectares (152.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Baliet (15,326 ha, 1.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 40.0 °C, humidity dropped to 5 % and gusts hit 55 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 81, 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.