How long did the Ibba fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 4 January 2025 and 10 January 2025: 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 5,484 hectares (54.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Ibba (5,524 ha, 0.6 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 37.4 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % 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.

SS · South Sudan · 2025-01-04 → 2025-01-10

Ibba fire, 4 January 2025 Ibba

Out · last detection 10 Jan 2025, 11:31 UTC

The fire started on 4 January 2025 in Ibba, South Sudan, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,484 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 317th largest in Western Equatoria since 2016 (of 361 with a page). Number 254 in South Sudan in 2025, of 292.

Burnt area: 5,484ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 7days; 4 Jan 2025 – 10 Jan 2025
Municipalities hit: 1; counties
Started on: 4 Jan; 2025
Heat detections: 159; in a single hotspot: 92 MW
Danger at start: 40; Very high · FWI index
Energy released: 1.4GW; sum of detected power

Play back 10 Jan 2025

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 4 Jan10 Jan

How it evolved, day by day

45678910

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

13%lowest humidity

It had gone 39 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: 2,245 ha in 2016, 1,438 ha in 2017, 3,481 ha in 2020, 2,925 ha in 2021, 86 ha in 2022, 1,982 ha in 2023, 3,392 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 5,307 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

Ibba where it started

5,524 ha reached on 31 Dec

0.6 %

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	Danger (FWI)
4 Jan	37.3 °C	18 %	30 km/h	Very high 40
5 Jan	37.4 °C	17 %	34 km/h	Very high 43
6 Jan	37.1 °C	17 %	38 km/h	Very high 46
7 Jan	35.4 °C	15 %	35 km/h	Very high 44
8 Jan	35.3 °C	14 %	30 km/h	Very high 42
9 Jan	36.1 °C	13 %	30 km/h	Very high 43
10 Jan	37.1 °C	13 %	33 km/h	Very high 45
11 Jan after	35.0 °C	13 %	37 km/h	Very high 48
12 Jan after	34.7 °C	15 %	36 km/h	Very high 48
13 Jan after	33.8 °C	13 %	31 km/h	Very high 46
14 Jan after	35.9 °C	12 %	35 km/h	Very high 47
15 Jan after	37.0 °C	14 %	34 km/h	Very high 48
16 Jan after	37.0 °C	15 %	37 km/h	Very high 50
17 Jan after	38.1 °C	16 %	35 km/h	Very high 49
18 Jan after	38.3 °C	16 %	29 km/h	Very high 45
19 Jan after	36.9 °C	17 %	27 km/h	Very high 47
20 Jan after	36.3 °C	21 %	35 km/h	Very high 48

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 28 Dec 2024

After · 17 Jan 2025

Before After

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 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).

PM2.5 peak134 µg/m³

Days over the guideline12 days

PM10139 µg/m³

Optical depth0.86

WHO 15

2345678910111213

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 · 159Every 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 time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

Other fires nearby

All fires in South Sudan ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Ibba fire last?: GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 4 January 2025 and 10 January 2025: 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 5,484 hectares (54.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Ibba (5,524 ha, 0.6 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 37.4 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % 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

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

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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What really happened?

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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.

Where it burned