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Fangak fire, 4 March 2018 Fangak

Out · last detection 13 Mar 2018, 11:12 UTC

The fire started on 4 March 2018 in Fangak, South Sudan, and satellites saw it burning for 9 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,115 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 406th largest in Jonglei since 2016 (of 427 with a page). Number 117 in South Sudan in 2018, of 120.

Burnt area
5,115ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
9days
4 Mar 2018 – 12 Mar 2018
Municipalities hit
1
counties
Started on
4 Mar
2018
Heat detections
212
in a single hotspot: 180 MW
Danger at start
60
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
4.2GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

13 Mar 2018
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 4 Mar12 Mar

How it evolved, day by day

4578910111213

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
38km/h · peak gust
4%lowest humidity

It had gone 7 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

8% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 431 ha in 2017.

What happened to each town

  1. Fangak where it started
    5,146 ha reached on 4 Mar
    0.7 %

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)
4 Mar 39.6 °C 4 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
5 Mar 39.5 °C 6 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 66
6 Mar 40.0 °C 5 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 65
7 Mar 39.2 °C 10 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
8 Mar 39.7 °C 19 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
9 Mar 42.0 °C 11 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
10 Mar 39.8 °C 17 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
11 Mar 39.9 °C 20 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
12 Mar 39.4 °C 7 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
13 Mar after 40.1 °C 6 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 65
14 Mar after 40.0 °C 5 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 68
15 Mar after 40.4 °C 10 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 69
16 Mar after 39.3 °C 15 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
17 Mar after 40.8 °C 7 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
18 Mar after 41.2 °C 5 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 63
19 Mar after 39.7 °C 12 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 66
20 Mar after 38.1 °C 24 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
21 Mar after 37.0 °C 29 % 34 km/h 0.3 mm Very high 44
22 Mar after 38.4 °C 24 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 25 Feb 2018
After · 19 Mar 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 · 212Every 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 4 March 2018 and 12 March 2018: 9 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 5,115 hectares (51.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Fangak (5,146 ha, 0.7 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 42.0 °C, humidity dropped to 4 % and gusts hit 38 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 66, 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.