Ibba fire, 30 December 2024 Yambio, Ibba
The fire started on 30 December 2024 in Ibba, South Sudan, and satellites saw it burning for 14 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 13,866 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 92th largest in Western Equatoria since 2016 (of 361 with a page). Number 29 in South Sudan in 2024, of 180.
- Burnt area
- 13,866ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 14days
- 30 Dec 2024 – 12 Jan 2025
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- counties
- Started on
- 30 Dec
- 2024
- Heat detections
- 643
- in a single hotspot: 255 MW
- Danger at start
- 42
- Very high · FWI index
- Energy released
- 8.6GW
- sum of detected power
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 32 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
97% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 5,409 ha in 2016, 6,541 ha in 2017, 4,693 ha in 2018, 2,417 ha in 2019, 11,717 ha in 2020, 1,220 ha in 2021, 1,984 ha in 2022, 1,621 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 13,509 ha that had burned before.
- 5,601 ha Ibba fire, December 2019 25,259 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,634 ha Ibba fire, December 2017 14,090 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,240 ha Yambio fire, December 2018 69,706 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,821 ha Yambio fire, December 2016 135,559 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,302 ha Yambio fire, December 2017 7,264 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 53 ha Yambio fire, January 2020 10,964 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
What happened to each town
-
7,938 ha reached on 31 Dec0.9 %
-
Ibba where it started6,029 ha reached on 30 Dec0.6 %
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 30 Dec | 35.8 °C | 20 % | 41 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 31 Dec | 35.6 °C | 17 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 1 Jan | 34.1 °C | 16 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 2 Jan | 35.2 °C | 18 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 3 Jan | 36.0 °C | 16 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 40 |
| 4 Jan | 37.0 °C | 19 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 39 |
| 5 Jan | 37.1 °C | 18 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 6 Jan | 36.9 °C | 18 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 7 Jan | 35.2 °C | 15 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 8 Jan | 35.3 °C | 14 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 9 Jan | 36.1 °C | 13 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 42 |
| 10 Jan | 36.9 °C | 14 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 11 Jan | 34.9 °C | 14 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 12 Jan | 34.4 °C | 15 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 13 Jan after | 33.7 °C | 14 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 14 Jan after | 35.7 °C | 13 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 15 Jan after | 36.9 °C | 15 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 16 Jan after | 36.7 °C | 16 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 50 |
| 17 Jan after | 37.7 °C | 17 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 18 Jan after | 37.7 °C | 17 % | 26 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 19 Jan after | 36.5 °C | 19 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 20 Jan after | 35.9 °C | 23 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 21 Jan after | 34.6 °C | 24 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 22 Jan after | 35.7 °C | 21 % | 35 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.
If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.
The smoke
CAMS · CopernicusOn 9 January 2025 the air beside the fire reached 134 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 74: 4.9 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
Particles from the Copernicus CAMS model at the centre of the perimeter; these are not measurements in each town. The pale bar is the worst hour, the solid one the daily average.
Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS)
Detections table · 643Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Ibba fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 30 December 2024 and 12 January 2025: 14 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 13,866 hectares (138.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Yambio (7,938 ha, 0.9 %); Ibba (6,029 ha, 0.6 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 37.1 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 41 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 48, 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.
Report an error
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.