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Ibba fire, 1 January 2025 Ibba, Yambio

Out · last detection 11 Jan 2025, 23:50 UTC

The fire started on 1 January 2025 in Ibba, South Sudan, and satellites saw it burning for 10 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 10,986 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 123th largest in Western Equatoria since 2016 (of 361 with a page). Number 99 in South Sudan in 2025, of 292.

Burnt area
10,986ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
10days
1 Jan 2025 – 10 Jan 2025
Municipalities hit
2
counties
Started on
1 Jan
2025
Heat detections
540
in a single hotspot: 121 MW
Danger at start
42
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
5.6GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

11 Jan 2025
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 1 Jan10 Jan

How it evolved, day by day

1234567891011

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
40km/h · peak gust
13%lowest humidity

It had gone 34 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

98% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 10,187 ha in 2016, 5,829 ha in 2017, 4,908 ha in 2018, 9,989 ha in 2020, 798 ha in 2021, 1,773 ha in 2022, 3,516 ha in 2023, 3,474 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 10,804 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Ibba where it started
    7,542 ha reached on 25 Dec
    0.8 %
  2. Yambio
    3,518 ha reached on 29 Dec
    0.4 %

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)
1 Jan 33.8 °C 16 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
2 Jan 34.9 °C 18 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
3 Jan 35.7 °C 17 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
4 Jan 36.7 °C 19 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
5 Jan 36.5 °C 18 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
6 Jan 36.6 °C 18 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
7 Jan 34.9 °C 16 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
8 Jan 34.9 °C 15 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
9 Jan 35.7 °C 14 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
10 Jan 36.7 °C 13 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
11 Jan after 34.8 °C 14 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
12 Jan after 34.3 °C 15 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
13 Jan after 33.5 °C 13 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
14 Jan after 35.5 °C 13 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
15 Jan after 36.5 °C 15 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
16 Jan after 36.6 °C 15 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
17 Jan after 37.4 °C 17 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
18 Jan after 37.3 °C 17 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
19 Jan after 35.6 °C 20 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
20 Jan after 36.1 °C 22 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 25 Dec 2024
After · 17 Jan 2025

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 · Copernicus

On 3 January 2025 the air beside the fire reached 128 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 71: 4.7 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak128 µg/m³
Days over the guideline15 days
PM10132 µg/m³
Optical depth0.99
303112345678910111213
Good Fair Moderate Poor Very poor Extremely poor

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 · 540Every 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 1 January 2025 and 10 January 2025: 10 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 10,986 hectares (109.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Ibba (7,542 ha, 0.8 %); Yambio (3,518 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.7 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 40 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 45, 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.