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SS · South Sudan · →

Juba fire, November 2016 Juba

Out · last detection 7 Dec 2016, 22:53 UTC

The fire started on 29 November 2016 in Juba, South Sudan, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 8,733 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 30th largest in Central Equatoria since 2016 (of 84 with a page). Number 90 in South Sudan in 2016, of 244.

Burnt area
8,733ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
8days
29 Nov 2016 – 6 Dec 2016
Municipalities hit
1
counties
Started on
29 Nov
2016
Heat detections
233
in a single hotspot: 133 MW
Danger at start
29
High · FWI index
Energy released
1.7GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

7 Dec 2016
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 29 Nov6 Dec

How it evolved, day by day

291234567

Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.

The weather it burned in

38°high
47km/h · peak gust
15%lowest humidity

It had gone 4 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

What happened to each town

  1. Juba where it started
    8,797 ha reached on 29 Nov
    0.5 %

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)
29 Nov 37.0 °C 29 % 43 km/h 0.4 mm High 29
30 Nov 36.3 °C 30 % 47 km/h 0.2 mm High 33
1 Dec 36.4 °C 26 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
2 Dec 35.3 °C 31 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
3 Dec 36.1 °C 31 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
4 Dec 37.3 °C 19 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
5 Dec 37.7 °C 18 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
6 Dec 38.4 °C 15 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
7 Dec after 38.4 °C 15 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
8 Dec after 38.0 °C 16 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
9 Dec after 38.7 °C 16 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
10 Dec after 37.9 °C 21 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
11 Dec after 36.7 °C 23 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
12 Dec after 37.1 °C 24 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
13 Dec after 36.9 °C 27 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
14 Dec after 36.6 °C 28 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
15 Dec after 35.4 °C 29 % 27 km/h 0.2 mm High 33
16 Dec after 34.6 °C 31 % 27 km/h 0.2 mm High 34

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 22 Nov 2016
After · 13 Dec 2016

If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.

Detections table · 233Every 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 Juba fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 29 November 2016 and 6 December 2016: 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 8,733 hectares (87.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Juba (8,797 ha, 0.5 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 38.4 °C, humidity dropped to 15 % and gusts hit 47 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

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.