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Baliet fire, January 2023 Baliet, Panyikang

Out · last detection 7 Feb 2023, 11:14 UTC

The fire started on 29 January 2023 in Baliet, South Sudan, and satellites saw it burning for 10 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 11,314 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 69th largest in Upper Nile since 2016 (of 284 with a page). Number 22 in South Sudan in 2023, of 106.

Burnt area
11,314ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
10days
29 Jan 2023 – 7 Feb 2023
Municipalities hit
2
counties
Started on
29 Jan
2023
Heat detections
432
in a single hotspot: 91 MW
Danger at start
58
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
3.2GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

7 Feb 2023
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 29 Jan7 Feb

How it evolved, day by day

2930311234567

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
50km/h · peak gust
8%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

100% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 6,944 ha in 2016, 6,966 ha in 2017, 38 ha in 2018, 7,006 ha in 2019, 1,352 ha in 2020, 9,145 ha in 2021, 9,836 ha in 2022. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 11,342 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Baliet where it started
    11,000 ha reached on 29 Jan
    0.9 %
  2. Panyikang
    376 ha reached on 1 Feb
    0.1 %

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)
29 Jan 39.5 °C 9 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
30 Jan 39.5 °C 10 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
31 Jan 39.0 °C 9 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
1 Feb 39.1 °C 10 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
2 Feb 37.7 °C 11 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 71
3 Feb 36.4 °C 10 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 74
4 Feb 37.4 °C 12 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 70
5 Feb 38.4 °C 11 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 66
6 Feb 39.6 °C 10 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 66
7 Feb 38.4 °C 8 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 73
8 Feb after 35.8 °C 12 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 74
9 Feb after 37.6 °C 15 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 64
10 Feb after 38.9 °C 15 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
11 Feb after 39.2 °C 15 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
12 Feb after 39.8 °C 13 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 70
13 Feb after 38.2 °C 13 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 65
14 Feb after 38.3 °C 15 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 64
15 Feb after 36.5 °C 13 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 75
16 Feb after 34.6 °C 13 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 76
17 Feb after 36.1 °C 14 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 72

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 22 Jan 2023
After · 14 Feb 2023

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 · 432Every 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 29 January 2023 and 7 February 2023: 10 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 11,314 hectares (113.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Baliet (11,000 ha, 0.9 %); Panyikang (376 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 39.6 °C, humidity dropped to 8 % and gusts hit 50 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 74, 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.