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Lafon fire, 9 January 2019 Lafon

Out · last detection 16 Jan 2019, 23:56 UTC

The fire started on 9 January 2019 in Lafon, South Sudan, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 58,253 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the largest fire in Eastern Equatoria since 2016 (of 80 with a page). Number 9 in South Sudan in 2019, of 150.

Burnt area
58,253ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
7days
9 Jan 2019 – 15 Jan 2019
Municipalities hit
1
counties
Started on
9 Jan
2019
Heat detections
2,283
in a single hotspot: 287 MW
Danger at start
46
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
31.1GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

16 Jan 2019
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 9 Jan15 Jan

How it evolved, day by day

910111213141516

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
53km/h · peak gust
11%lowest humidity

It had gone 10 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

18% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 7,583 ha in 2016, 3,149 ha in 2017.

What happened to each town

  1. Lafon where it started
    58,668 ha reached on 9 Jan
    3.6 %

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)
9 Jan 38.7 °C 14 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
10 Jan 39.8 °C 13 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
11 Jan 38.9 °C 13 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
12 Jan 39.5 °C 11 % 50 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 65
13 Jan 39.2 °C 13 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 68
14 Jan 39.5 °C 14 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 64
15 Jan 38.6 °C 17 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
16 Jan after 38.1 °C 16 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
17 Jan after 38.1 °C 17 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
18 Jan after 38.3 °C 15 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
19 Jan after 38.9 °C 16 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
20 Jan after 38.2 °C 17 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
21 Jan after 39.6 °C 12 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
22 Jan after 39.7 °C 12 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
23 Jan after 38.7 °C 16 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
24 Jan after 39.2 °C 16 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 69
25 Jan after 40.1 °C 15 % 52 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 71

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 2 Jan 2019
After · 22 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 · 2,283Every 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 9 January 2019 and 15 January 2019: 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 58,253 hectares (582.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Lafon (58,668 ha, 3.6 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 39.8 °C, humidity dropped to 11 % and gusts hit 53 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 68, 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.