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Ibba fire, 3 January 2021 Ibba, Wulu

Out · last detection 10 Jan 2021, 11:24 UTC

The fire started on 3 January 2021 in Ibba, South Sudan, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 21,834 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 53th largest in Western Equatoria since 2016 (of 361 with a page). Number 13 in South Sudan in 2021, of 212.

Burnt area
21,834ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
7days
3 Jan 2021 – 9 Jan 2021
Municipalities hit
2
counties
Started on
3 Jan
2021
Heat detections
699
in a single hotspot: 147 MW
Danger at start
40
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
6.8GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

10 Jan 2021
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 3 Jan9 Jan

How it evolved, day by day

345678910

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

The weather it burned in

37°high
38km/h · peak gust
16%lowest humidity

It had gone 56 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: 12,085 ha in 2016, 10,942 ha in 2017, 1,079 ha in 2018, 1,935 ha in 2019, 6,623 ha in 2020. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 19,357 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Ibba where it started
    15,808 ha reached on 1 Jan
    1.6 %
  2. Wulu
    6,180 ha reached on 5 Jan
    0.5 %

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)
3 Jan 34.3 °C 25 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
4 Jan 34.5 °C 23 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
5 Jan 36.8 °C 18 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
6 Jan 37.2 °C 16 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
7 Jan 36.0 °C 17 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
8 Jan 35.7 °C 17 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
9 Jan 34.3 °C 18 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
10 Jan after 35.6 °C 13 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
11 Jan after 35.5 °C 13 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
12 Jan after 36.5 °C 15 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
13 Jan after 35.9 °C 14 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
14 Jan after 36.7 °C 13 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
15 Jan after 35.6 °C 13 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
16 Jan after 36.3 °C 15 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
17 Jan after 36.2 °C 13 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
18 Jan after 36.4 °C 13 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
19 Jan after 36.0 °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.

Before · 27 Dec 2020
After · 16 Jan 2021

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 · 699Every 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 3 January 2021 and 9 January 2021: 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 21,834 hectares (218.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Ibba (15,808 ha, 1.6 %); Wulu (6,180 ha, 0.5 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.2 °C, humidity dropped to 16 % 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

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.