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Fangak fire, February 2017 Fangak

Out · last detection 11 Mar 2017, 10:53 UTC

The fire started on 27 February 2017 in Fangak, South Sudan, and satellites saw it burning for 13 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,828 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 326th largest in Jonglei since 2016 (of 427 with a page). Number 145 in South Sudan in 2017, of 203.

Burnt area
5,828ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
13days
27 Feb 2017 – 11 Mar 2017
Municipalities hit
1
counties
Started on
27 Feb
2017
Heat detections
287
in a single hotspot: 77 MW
Danger at start
66
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
3.2GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

11 Mar 2017
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 27 Feb11 Mar

How it evolved, day by day

2728234567891011

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

The weather it burned in

42°high
53km/h · peak gust
5%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 2.0 mm on 17 Mar.

This area had burned before

71% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 5,658 ha in 2016. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 4,116 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Fangak where it started
    5,863 ha reached on 20 Feb
    0.8 %

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)
27 Feb 39.3 °C 7 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 66
28 Feb 39.6 °C 8 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
1 Mar 39.4 °C 20 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
2 Mar 41.0 °C 9 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 63
3 Mar 40.3 °C 7 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 63
4 Mar 41.0 °C 7 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 70
5 Mar 40.8 °C 6 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 68
6 Mar 41.7 °C 6 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 70
7 Mar 42.0 °C 5 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 74
8 Mar 41.6 °C 5 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 75
9 Mar 42.1 °C 6 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 67
10 Mar 42.2 °C 7 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 72
11 Mar 42.2 °C 6 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 84
12 Mar after 42.5 °C 8 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 72
13 Mar after 42.4 °C 10 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 72
14 Mar after 42.8 °C 11 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 80
15 Mar after 41.7 °C 12 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 75
16 Mar after 41.0 °C 9 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 74
17 Mar after 37.2 °C 29 % 46 km/h 2.0 mm High 26

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 20 Feb 2017
After · 18 Mar 2017

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 · 287Every 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 Fangak fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 27 February 2017 and 11 March 2017: 13 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 5,828 hectares (58.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Fangak (5,863 ha, 0.8 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 42.2 °C, humidity dropped to 5 % and gusts hit 53 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 84, 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.