Ibba fire, 3 January 2026 Wulu, Ibba
The fire started on 3 January 2026 in Ibba, South Sudan, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 16,116 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 70th largest in Western Equatoria since 2016 (of 361 with a page). Number 20 in South Sudan in 2026, of 183.
Compare with…
Suggestions: Wulu · 2016Wulu · 2020Wulu · 2016Wulu · 2022
- Burnt area
- 16,116ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 8days
- 3 Jan 2026 – 10 Jan 2026
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- counties
- Started on
- 3 Jan
- 2026
- Heat detections
- 409
- in a single hotspot: 143 MW
- Danger at start
- 41
- Very high · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 416MW
- detected power per day, on average
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 more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
100% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 13,716 ha in 2016, 4,000 ha in 2017, 1,705 ha in 2018, 812 ha in 2019, 13,747 ha in 2020, 5,067 ha in 2021, 11,500 ha in 2022, 1,363 ha in 2023, 10,192 ha in 2024, 1,730 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 16,092 ha that had burned before.
- 7,431 ha Wulu fire, December 2016 61,053 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 6,746 ha Wulu fire, December 2020 14,368 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 5,635 ha Wulu fire, January 2016 7,217 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 4,726 ha Wulu fire, January 2022 6,042 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 4,644 ha Ibba fire, December 2019 15,012 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 4,493 ha Ibba fire, January 2021 21,834 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 3,887 ha Wulu fire, December 2024 28,226 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 761 ha Yambio fire, January 2022 13,861 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
How big is it?
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Paris boundary: geoBoundaries · Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière (IGN-F) (Etalab Open License 2.0).
Madrid boundary: geoBoundaries · Open Data ESRI, IGN Central Registry of Cartography Area (CC BY 4.0).
Berlin boundary: geoBoundaries · Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy (dl-de/by-2-0).
This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.
What happened to each town
-
14,919 ha reached on 3 Jan1.2 %
-
Ibba where it started1,294 ha reached on 2 Jan0.1 %
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 | 35.7 °C | 22 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 41 |
| 4 Jan | 35.8 °C | 16 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 5 Jan | 35.7 °C | 18 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 6 Jan | 35.3 °C | 20 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 43 |
| 7 Jan | 36.2 °C | 19 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 8 Jan | 37.0 °C | 17 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 9 Jan | 36.0 °C | 19 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 10 Jan | 34.6 °C | 20 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 11 Jan after | 34.6 °C | 21 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 12 Jan after | 35.7 °C | 20 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 46 |
| 13 Jan after | 35.8 °C | 20 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 14 Jan after | 35.0 °C | 21 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 50 |
| 15 Jan after | 34.7 °C | 22 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 16 Jan after | 34.0 °C | 18 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 17 Jan after | 35.4 °C | 16 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 18 Jan after | 35.9 °C | 16 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 19 Jan after | 36.1 °C | 17 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 20 Jan after | 36.8 °C | 19 % | 35 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
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 1 January 2026 the air beside the fire reached 102 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 53: 3.5 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 · 409Every 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 3 January 2026 and 10 January 2026: 8 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 16,116 hectares (161.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Wulu (14,919 ha, 1.2 %); Ibba (1,294 ha, 0.1 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 37.0 °C, humidity dropped to 16 % and gusts hit 36 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 47, 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
How we know this
- Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery.
- Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 409 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
- We have not matched this page with any official record.
- Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
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.