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Lafon fire, January 2020 Lafon

Out · last detection 12 Jan 2020, 11:48 UTC

The fire started on 9 January 2020 in Lafon, South Sudan, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,844 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 52th largest in Eastern Equatoria since 2016 (of 80 with a page). Number 151 in South Sudan in 2020, of 190.

Burnt area
5,844ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
4days
9 Jan 2020 – 12 Jan 2020
Municipalities hit
1
counties
Started on
9 Jan
2020
Heat detections
142
in a single hotspot: 235 MW
Danger at start
16
Moderate · FWI index
Energy released
5.9GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

12 Jan 2020
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 9 Jan12 Jan

How it evolved, day by day

9101112

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

The weather it burned in

34°high
35km/h · peak gust
14%lowest humidity

It had gone 0 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

32% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,675 ha in 2016, 330 ha in 2017. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 1,848 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Lafon where it started
    5,880 ha reached on 9 Jan
    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)
9 Jan 33.3 °C 42 % 35 km/h 1.0 mm Moderate 16
10 Jan 34.5 °C 22 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
11 Jan 33.9 °C 16 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
12 Jan 32.2 °C 14 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
13 Jan after 32.8 °C 15 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
14 Jan after 35.7 °C 17 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
15 Jan after 36.2 °C 29 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
16 Jan after 37.1 °C 24 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
17 Jan after 37.6 °C 22 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
18 Jan after 36.9 °C 19 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
19 Jan after 35.9 °C 17 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
20 Jan after 34.0 °C 20 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
21 Jan after 34.6 °C 22 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
22 Jan after 34.7 °C 18 % 27 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 · 2 Jan 2020
After · 19 Jan 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 · 142Every 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 2020 and 12 January 2020: 4 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 5,844 hectares (58.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Lafon (5,880 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 34.5 °C, humidity dropped to 14 % and gusts hit 35 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 29, class 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.