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Lafon fire, 22 December 2016 Lafon

Out · last detection 29 Dec 2016, 22:41 UTC

The fire started on 22 December 2016 in Lafon, South Sudan, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,579 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 60th largest in Eastern Equatoria since 2016 (of 80 with a page). Number 208 in South Sudan in 2016, of 244.

The power measured by the satellite is low (26.6 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Burnt area
5,579ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
7days
22 Dec 2016 – 28 Dec 2016
Municipalities hit
1
counties
Started on
22 Dec
2016
Heat detections
113
in a single hotspot: 27 MW
Danger at start
56
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
654MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

29 Dec 2016
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 22 Dec28 Dec

How it evolved, day by day

23242526272829

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
56km/h · peak gust
15%lowest humidity

It had gone 19 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. Lafon where it started
    5,617 ha reached on 18 Dec
    0.3 %

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 37.3 °C 25 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
23 Dec 38.6 °C 20 % 56 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
24 Dec 39.1 °C 18 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
25 Dec 37.9 °C 23 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
26 Dec 38.5 °C 19 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
27 Dec 38.0 °C 17 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
28 Dec 38.2 °C 15 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
29 Dec after 38.7 °C 17 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
30 Dec after 37.2 °C 22 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
31 Dec after 38.2 °C 21 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
1 Jan after 39.8 °C 13 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
2 Jan after 39.7 °C 13 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
3 Jan after 38.9 °C 14 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
4 Jan after 39.3 °C 13 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
5 Jan after 38.6 °C 11 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
6 Jan after 39.0 °C 10 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
7 Jan after 39.2 °C 11 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 15 Dec 2016
After · 4 Jan 2017

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 · 113Every 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 Lafon fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 22 December 2016 and 28 December 2016: 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 5,579 hectares (55.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Lafon (5,617 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 39.1 °C, humidity dropped to 15 % and gusts hit 56 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 59, class Extreme.
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.