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Lafon fire, 16 January 2017 Lafon

Out · last detection 25 Jan 2017, 22:34 UTC

The fire started on 16 January 2017 in Lafon, South Sudan, and satellites saw it burning for 10 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 7,464 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 35th largest in Eastern Equatoria since 2016 (of 80 with a page). Number 91 in South Sudan in 2017, of 203.

The power measured by the satellite is low (17.4 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
7,464ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
10days
16 Jan 2017 – 25 Jan 2017
Municipalities hit
1
counties
Started on
16 Jan
2017
Heat detections
250
in a single hotspot: 17 MW
Danger at start
84
Very extreme · FWI index
Energy released
833MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

25 Jan 2017
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 16 Jan25 Jan

How it evolved, day by day

16171819202122232425

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

The weather it burned in

40°high
67km/h · peak gust
11%lowest humidity

It had gone 44 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

2% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 163 ha in 2016.

What happened to each town

  1. Lafon where it started
    7,520 ha reached on 16 Jan
    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)
16 Jan 40.0 °C 11 % 64 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 84
17 Jan 39.4 °C 13 % 67 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 88
18 Jan 39.4 °C 13 % 59 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 80
19 Jan 39.8 °C 14 % 56 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 78
20 Jan 39.8 °C 15 % 55 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 76
21 Jan 39.6 °C 15 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 74
22 Jan 40.3 °C 16 % 63 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 83
23 Jan 40.3 °C 16 % 64 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 85
24 Jan 39.9 °C 16 % 60 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 80
25 Jan 39.7 °C 15 % 56 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 77
26 Jan after 39.8 °C 16 % 60 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 82
27 Jan after 40.1 °C 17 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 66
28 Jan after 39.9 °C 16 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
29 Jan after 38.3 °C 18 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
30 Jan after 38.0 °C 26 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
31 Jan after 37.9 °C 24 % 28 km/h 0.1 mm Very high 44
1 Feb after 39.0 °C 20 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
2 Feb after 37.6 °C 12 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
3 Feb after 39.3 °C 15 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
4 Feb after 39.2 °C 17 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 9 Jan 2017
After · 1 Feb 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 · 250Every 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 16 January 2017 and 25 January 2017: 10 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 7,464 hectares (74.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Lafon (7,520 ha, 0.5 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 40.3 °C, humidity dropped to 11 % and gusts hit 67 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 88, class Very 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.