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Bor South fire, January 2018 Bor South

Out · last detection 24 Jan 2018, 11:11 UTC

The fire started on 20 January 2018 in Bor South, South Sudan, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,624 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 344th largest in Jonglei since 2016 (of 427 with a page). Number 94 in South Sudan in 2018, of 120.

Burnt area
5,624ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
5days
20 Jan 2018 – 24 Jan 2018
Municipalities hit
1
counties
Started on
20 Jan
2018
Heat detections
133
in a single hotspot: 192 MW
Danger at start
57
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
7.1GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

24 Jan 2018
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 20 Jan24 Jan

How it evolved, day by day

21222324

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

The weather it burned in

39°high
46km/h · peak gust
12%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

6% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 358 ha in 2017.

What happened to each town

  1. Bor South where it started
    5,655 ha reached on 21 Jan
    0.4 %

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)
20 Jan 38.0 °C 13 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
21 Jan 38.4 °C 12 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
22 Jan 37.0 °C 19 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
23 Jan 39.2 °C 14 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
24 Jan 38.8 °C 14 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
25 Jan after 37.7 °C 13 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
26 Jan after 38.2 °C 14 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
27 Jan after 36.9 °C 12 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
28 Jan after 37.8 °C 14 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
29 Jan after 37.1 °C 11 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
30 Jan after 36.5 °C 13 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
31 Jan after 37.2 °C 13 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
1 Feb after 38.0 °C 11 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
2 Feb after 38.6 °C 14 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
3 Feb after 39.2 °C 18 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 13 Jan 2018
After · 31 Jan 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 · 133Every 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 Bor South fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 20 January 2018 and 24 January 2018: 5 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 5,624 hectares (56.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Bor South (5,655 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 39.2 °C, humidity dropped to 12 % and gusts hit 46 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 62, 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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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.