How long did the Ibba fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 1 January 2026 and 9 January 2026: 9 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 7,695 hectares (77.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 2 municipalities: Ibba (5,891 ha, 0.6 %); Yambio (1,854 ha, 0.2 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 36.6 °C, humidity dropped to 18 % and gusts hit 36 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 41, 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 · 2026-01-01 → 2026-01-09

Ibba fire, 1 January 2026 Ibba, Yambio

Out · last detection 9 Jan 2026, 23:49 UTC

The fire started on 1 January 2026 in Ibba, South Sudan, and satellites saw it burning for 9 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 7,695 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 176th largest in Western Equatoria since 2016 (of 361 with a page). Number 77 in South Sudan in 2026, of 182.

Burnt area: 7,695ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 9days; 1 Jan 2026 – 9 Jan 2026
Municipalities hit: 2; counties
Started on: 1 Jan; 2026
Heat detections: 224; in a single hotspot: 88 MW
Danger at start: 34; High · FWI index
Energy released: 1.9GW; sum of detected power

Play back 9 Jan 2026

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 1 Jan9 Jan

How it evolved, day by day

123456789

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

36km/h · peak gust

18%lowest humidity

It had gone 16 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

94% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,676 ha in 2016, 1,670 ha in 2017, 1,808 ha in 2018, 1,094 ha in 2019, 4,705 ha in 2020, 1,195 ha in 2021, 3,823 ha in 2022, 13 ha in 2023, 3,818 ha in 2024, 836 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 7,236 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

Ibba where it started

5,891 ha reached on 25 Dec

0.6 %
Yambio

1,854 ha reached on 26 Dec

0.2 %

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)
1 Jan	34.4 °C	20 %	22 km/h	High 34
2 Jan	34.6 °C	30 %	30 km/h	High 36
3 Jan	35.1 °C	25 %	36 km/h	High 38
4 Jan	35.7 °C	18 %	28 km/h	Very high 40
5 Jan	34.8 °C	20 %	21 km/h	Very high 39
6 Jan	35.5 °C	20 %	27 km/h	Very high 41
7 Jan	36.3 °C	19 %	32 km/h	Very high 41
8 Jan	36.6 °C	18 %	32 km/h	Very high 41
9 Jan	35.6 °C	20 %	28 km/h	Very high 40
10 Jan after	34.1 °C	23 %	26 km/h	Very high 42
11 Jan after	34.5 °C	22 %	31 km/h	Very high 42
12 Jan after	35.4 °C	22 %	26 km/h	Very high 43
13 Jan after	35.4 °C	20 %	37 km/h	Very high 46
14 Jan after	35.0 °C	22 %	46 km/h	Extreme 51
15 Jan after	34.8 °C	22 %	41 km/h	Very high 48
16 Jan after	34.1 °C	19 %	37 km/h	Very high 46
17 Jan after	35.2 °C	18 %	24 km/h	Very high 44
18 Jan after	35.8 °C	17 %	31 km/h	Very high 46
19 Jan after	35.5 °C	19 %	37 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 · 25 Dec 2025

After · 16 Jan 2026

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 5 January 2026 the air beside the fire reached 194 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 113: 7.6 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak194 µg/m³

Days over the guideline14 days

PM10202 µg/m³

Optical depth1.16

WHO 15

3031123456789101112

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 · 224Every 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 1 January 2026 and 9 January 2026: 9 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 7,695 hectares (77.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 2 municipalities: Ibba (5,891 ha, 0.6 %); Yambio (1,854 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 36.6 °C, humidity dropped to 18 % and gusts hit 36 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 41, 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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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