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Pibor fire, December 2017 Pibor, Pochalla

Out · last detection 31 Dec 2017, 22:59 UTC

The fire started on 29 December 2017 in Pibor, South Sudan, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,267 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 279th largest in Jonglei since 2016 (of 427 with a page). Number 124 in South Sudan in 2017, of 203.

Burnt area
6,267ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
4days
29 Dec 2017 – 1 Jan 2018
Municipalities hit
2
counties
Started on
29 Dec
2017
Heat detections
153
in a single hotspot: 120 MW
Danger at start
42
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
4.3GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

31 Dec 2017
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 29 Dec1 Jan

How it evolved, day by day

293031

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

The weather it burned in

38°high
30km/h · peak gust
15%lowest humidity

It had gone 46 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

55% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 4,246 ha in 2016. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 3,422 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Pibor where it started
    5,591 ha reached on 29 Dec
    0.2 %
  2. Pochalla
    718 ha reached on 31 Dec
    0.1 %

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)
29 Dec 37.6 °C 18 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
30 Dec 37.7 °C 17 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
31 Dec 37.8 °C 15 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
1 Jan 37.3 °C 15 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
2 Jan after 35.6 °C 19 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
3 Jan after 36.2 °C 19 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
4 Jan after 36.4 °C 19 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
5 Jan after 36.6 °C 16 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
6 Jan after 35.7 °C 16 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
7 Jan after 37.1 °C 13 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
8 Jan after 37.0 °C 11 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
9 Jan after 37.3 °C 12 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
10 Jan after 38.2 °C 12 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
11 Jan after 38.1 °C 14 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 22 Dec 2017
After · 8 Jan 2018

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 · 153Every 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 Pibor fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 29 December 2017 and 1 January 2018: 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 6,267 hectares (62.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 2 municipalities: Pibor (5,591 ha, 0.2 %); Pochalla (718 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.8 °C, humidity dropped to 15 % and gusts hit 30 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 47, class Very 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.