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Juba fire, 13 December 2020 Juba, Terekeka

Out · last detection 17 Dec 2020, 23:11 UTC

The fire started on 13 December 2020 in Juba, South Sudan, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 7,860 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 41th largest in Central Equatoria since 2016 (of 84 with a page). Number 85 in South Sudan in 2020, of 190.

Burnt area
7,860ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
5days
13 Dec 2020 – 17 Dec 2020
Municipalities hit
2
counties
Started on
13 Dec
2020
Heat detections
205
in a single hotspot: 69 MW
Danger at start
34
High · FWI index
Energy released
1.8GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

17 Dec 2020
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 13 Dec17 Dec

How it evolved, day by day

1314151617

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
35km/h · peak gust
17%lowest humidity

It had gone 34 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

9% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 616 ha in 2016, 86 ha in 2018.

What happened to each town

  1. Juba where it started
    6,422 ha reached on 13 Dec
    0.4 %
  2. Terekeka
    1,494 ha reached on 13 Dec
    0.1 %

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)
13 Dec 36.5 °C 21 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
14 Dec 36.1 °C 24 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
15 Dec 36.2 °C 21 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
16 Dec 36.8 °C 18 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
17 Dec 36.1 °C 17 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
18 Dec after 35.5 °C 23 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
19 Dec after 35.5 °C 23 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
20 Dec after 36.3 °C 20 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
21 Dec after 34.1 °C 33 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
22 Dec after 34.6 °C 34 % 40 km/h 0.6 mm High 30
23 Dec after 35.7 °C 30 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
24 Dec after 35.9 °C 25 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
25 Dec after 36.0 °C 26 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
26 Dec after 36.1 °C 25 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
27 Dec after 37.1 °C 23 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 36

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 6 Dec 2020
After · 24 Dec 2020

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 · 205Every 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 13 December 2020 and 17 December 2020: 5 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 7,860 hectares (78.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Juba (6,422 ha, 0.4 %); Terekeka (1,494 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.8 °C, humidity dropped to 17 % and gusts hit 35 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 38, 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.