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Pariang fire, March 2017 Guit, Pariang

Out · last detection 11 Mar 2017, 23:29 UTC

The fire started on 5 March 2017 in Pariang, South Sudan, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,860 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 59th largest in Unity since 2016 (of 85 with a page). Number 144 in South Sudan in 2017, of 203.

Burnt area
5,860ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
8days
5 Mar 2017 – 12 Mar 2017
Municipalities hit
2
counties
Started on
5 Mar
2017
Heat detections
150
in a single hotspot: 123 MW
Danger at start
66
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
3.6GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

11 Mar 2017
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 5 Mar12 Mar

How it evolved, day by day

567891011

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

The weather it burned in

43°high
53km/h · peak gust
5%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

1% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 86 ha in 2016.

What happened to each town

  1. Guit
    3,333 ha reached on 9 Mar
    1.0 %
  2. Pariang where it started
    2,564 ha reached on 2 Mar
    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)
5 Mar 40.7 °C 6 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 66
6 Mar 41.8 °C 5 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 68
7 Mar 42.1 °C 5 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 72
8 Mar 41.4 °C 5 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 70
9 Mar 42.0 °C 5 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 67
10 Mar 42.7 °C 6 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 75
11 Mar 42.2 °C 5 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 84
12 Mar 43.4 °C 7 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 70
13 Mar after 42.6 °C 8 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 75
14 Mar after 43.1 °C 10 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 78
15 Mar after 43.0 °C 10 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 81
16 Mar after 41.1 °C 7 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 77
17 Mar after 39.1 °C 23 % 41 km/h 0.8 mm Very high 40
18 Mar after 41.6 °C 17 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
19 Mar after 42.3 °C 12 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
20 Mar after 40.7 °C 8 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 66
21 Mar after 40.2 °C 7 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 65
22 Mar after 41.3 °C 6 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 26 Feb 2017
After · 19 Mar 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 · 150Every 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 Pariang fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 5 March 2017 and 12 March 2017: 8 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 5,860 hectares (58.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Guit (3,333 ha, 1.0 %); Pariang (2,564 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 43.4 °C, humidity dropped to 5 % and gusts hit 53 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 84, 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.