Ibba fire, December 2020 Ibba
The fire started on 29 December 2020 in Ibba, South Sudan, and satellites saw it burning for 20 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 10,247 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 136th largest in Western Equatoria since 2016 (of 361 with a page). Number 56 in South Sudan in 2020, of 182.
Compare with…
Suggestions: Ibba · 2020Ibba · 2017Ibba · 2018Ibba · 2025
- Burnt area
- 10,247ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 20days
- 29 Dec 2020 – 17 Jan 2021
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- counties
- Started on
- 29 Dec
- 2020
- Heat detections
- 511
- in a single hotspot: 147 MW
- Danger at start
- 43
- Very high · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 432MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone 57 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
95% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 4,642 ha in 2016, 4,421 ha in 2017, 3,436 ha in 2018, 6,797 ha in 2020. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 9,766 ha that had burned before.
- 4,409 ha Ibba fire, January 2020 14,680 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 4,400 ha Ibba fire, December 2017 21,208 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,614 ha Ibba fire, December 2018 57,809 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
How big is it?
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Paris boundary: geoBoundaries · Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière (IGN-F) (Etalab Open License 2.0).
Madrid boundary: geoBoundaries · Open Data ESRI, IGN Central Registry of Cartography Area (CC BY 4.0).
Berlin boundary: geoBoundaries · Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy (dl-de/by-2-0).
This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.
What happened to each town
-
Ibba where it started10,320 ha reached on 29 Dec1.1 %
Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance runs from the point marking the centre of each area 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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 5 Jan | 36.7 °C | 19 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 6 Jan | 37.4 °C | 16 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 7 Jan | 36.5 °C | 17 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 8 Jan | 36.1 °C | 16 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 9 Jan | 34.3 °C | 20 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 10 Jan | 35.5 °C | 14 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 11 Jan | 35.6 °C | 14 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 12 Jan | 36.9 °C | 15 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 13 Jan | 36.0 °C | 15 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 14 Jan | 37.0 °C | 13 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 15 Jan | 35.3 °C | 13 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 16 Jan | 36.3 °C | 15 % | 21 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 17 Jan | 36.2 °C | 14 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 18 Jan after | 36.5 °C | 13 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 19 Jan after | 36.1 °C | 15 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 50 |
| 20 Jan after | 35.9 °C | 12 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 21 Jan after | 35.3 °C | 15 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
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 · 511Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 72,650 haIbba18 December 2025 · 39 days · 10 km away
- 57,809 haIbba7 December 2018 · 38 days · 10 km away
- 99,647 haIbba8 December 2025 · 52 days · 25 km away
- 50,268 haIbba14 December 2017 · 34 days · 31 km away
- 135,559 haYambio2 December 2016 · 41 days · 38 km away
- 32,173 haYambio4 December 2025 · 32 days · 40 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Ibba fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 29 December 2020 to 17 January 2021 (20 days). The perimeter dates it from 5 January 2021 to 11 January 2021.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 10,247 hectares (102.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Ibba (10,320 ha, 1.1 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 37.4 °C, humidity dropped to 14 % and gusts hit 38 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 46, 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
History of this page · 2 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
- Last day with fire: 11 January 2021 → 17 January 2021.
- Start date: 5 January 2021 → 29 December 2020.
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.
Report an error
How we know this
- Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery.
- Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 5 January 2021 to 11 January 2021. 511 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
- We have not matched this page with any official record.
- Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
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.