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SS · South Sudan · →

Ibba fire, 18 December 2017 Ibba

Out · last detection 24 Dec 2017, 10:53 UTC

The fire started on 18 December 2017 in Ibba, South Sudan, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 21,208 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 55th largest in Western Equatoria since 2016 (of 361 with a page). Number 16 in South Sudan in 2017, of 203.

Burnt area
21,208ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
7days
18 Dec 2017 – 24 Dec 2017
Municipalities hit
1
counties
Started on
18 Dec
2017
Heat detections
703
in a single hotspot: 369 MW
Danger at start
38
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
7.4GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

24 Dec 2017
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 18 Dec24 Dec

How it evolved, day by day

18192021222324

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

The weather it burned in

38°high
39km/h · peak gust
12%lowest humidity

It had gone 35 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

44% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 10,009 ha in 2016. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 9,318 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Ibba where it started
    21,359 ha reached on 14 Dec
    2.2 %

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)
18 Dec 36.1 °C 20 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
19 Dec 35.7 °C 22 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
20 Dec 36.1 °C 19 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
21 Dec 37.6 °C 13 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
22 Dec 37.7 °C 12 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
23 Dec 37.5 °C 14 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
24 Dec 36.6 °C 15 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
25 Dec after 36.0 °C 16 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
26 Dec after 35.1 °C 17 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
27 Dec after 34.9 °C 18 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
28 Dec after 36.0 °C 17 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
29 Dec after 36.8 °C 17 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
30 Dec after 36.2 °C 15 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
31 Dec after 36.2 °C 14 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
1 Jan after 33.8 °C 17 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
2 Jan after 32.3 °C 19 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
3 Jan after 33.6 °C 18 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 11 Dec 2017
After · 31 Dec 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 · 703Every 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 Ibba fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 18 December 2017 and 24 December 2017: 7 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 21,208 hectares (212.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Ibba (21,359 ha, 2.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.7 °C, humidity dropped to 12 % and gusts hit 39 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 44, 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.