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Fangak fire, November 2019 Fangak

Out · last detection 19 Dec 2019, 11:00 UTC

The fire started on 28 November 2019 in Fangak, South Sudan, and satellites saw it burning for 21 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 10,282 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 114th largest in Jonglei since 2016 (of 427 with a page). Number 55 in South Sudan in 2019, of 150.

Burnt area
10,282ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
21days
28 Nov 2019 – 18 Dec 2019
Municipalities hit
1
counties
Started on
28 Nov
2019
Heat detections
385
in a single hotspot: 48 MW
Danger at start
23
High · FWI index
Energy released
3.2GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

19 Dec 2019
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 28 Nov18 Dec

How it evolved, day by day

28293012345678910111213141516171819

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

The weather it burned in

36°high
39km/h · peak gust
16%lowest humidity

It had gone 18 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

89% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 3,073 ha in 2016, 11,673 ha in 2017, 53 ha in 2018. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 9,140 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Fangak where it started
    10,345 ha reached on 28 Nov
    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)
28 Nov 35.6 °C 22 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
29 Nov 35.2 °C 22 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
30 Nov 34.7 °C 22 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
1 Dec 35.0 °C 21 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
2 Dec 34.3 °C 22 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
3 Dec 35.2 °C 20 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
4 Dec 35.0 °C 19 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
5 Dec 34.4 °C 21 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
6 Dec 35.1 °C 21 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
7 Dec 35.1 °C 24 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
8 Dec 35.3 °C 25 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
9 Dec 34.2 °C 22 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
10 Dec 33.5 °C 22 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
11 Dec 34.5 °C 25 % 17 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
12 Dec 34.7 °C 26 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
13 Dec 34.8 °C 25 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
14 Dec 34.7 °C 23 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
15 Dec 34.9 °C 20 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
16 Dec 34.4 °C 16 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
17 Dec 33.6 °C 16 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
18 Dec 34.0 °C 23 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
19 Dec after 34.6 °C 19 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
20 Dec after 34.7 °C 22 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
21 Dec after 35.1 °C 22 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
22 Dec after 35.8 °C 20 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
23 Dec after 35.5 °C 21 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
24 Dec after 35.8 °C 19 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
25 Dec after 35.8 °C 15 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
26 Dec after 34.7 °C 14 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
27 Dec after 33.7 °C 16 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
28 Dec after 33.2 °C 15 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 21 Nov 2019
After · 25 Dec 2019

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 · 385Every 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 28 November 2019 and 18 December 2019: 21 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 10,282 hectares (102.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Fangak (10,345 ha, 1.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 35.6 °C, humidity dropped to 16 % and gusts hit 39 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 42, class Very high.
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.