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SS · South Sudan · →

Juba fire, December 2018 Juba

Out · last detection 28 Dec 2018, 10:34 UTC

The fire started on 22 December 2018 in Juba, South Sudan, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,867 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 49th largest in Central Equatoria since 2016 (of 84 with a page). Number 65 in South Sudan in 2018, of 120.

Burnt area
6,867ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
7days
22 Dec 2018 – 28 Dec 2018
Municipalities hit
1
counties
Started on
22 Dec
2018
Heat detections
170
in a single hotspot: 126 MW
Danger at start
38
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
1.6GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

28 Dec 2018
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 22 Dec28 Dec

How it evolved, day by day

22232425262728

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

The weather it burned in

39°high
37km/h · peak gust
15%lowest humidity

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

This area had burned before

58% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 4,203 ha in 2016, 1 ha in 2017. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 3,955 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Juba where it started
    6,917 ha reached on 22 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)
22 Dec 37.5 °C 19 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
23 Dec 37.3 °C 20 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
24 Dec 37.0 °C 21 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
25 Dec 39.0 °C 15 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
26 Dec 39.2 °C 15 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
27 Dec 38.9 °C 19 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
28 Dec 37.8 °C 23 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
29 Dec after 36.3 °C 28 % 33 km/h 0.6 mm High 36
30 Dec after 34.9 °C 28 % 41 km/h 0.2 mm Very high 38
31 Dec after 35.2 °C 31 % 39 km/h 0.6 mm High 32
1 Jan after 37.1 °C 24 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
2 Jan after 37.2 °C 22 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
3 Jan after 36.7 °C 24 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
4 Jan after 37.0 °C 27 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
5 Jan after 38.2 °C 21 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
6 Jan after 39.6 °C 13 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
7 Jan after 38.5 °C 16 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 15 Dec 2018
After · 4 Jan 2019

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 · 170Every 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 22 December 2018 and 28 December 2018: 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 6,867 hectares (68.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Juba (6,917 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 39.2 °C, humidity dropped to 15 % and gusts hit 37 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 48, 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.