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Pibor fire, 31 December 2018 Pibor

Out · last detection 9 Jan 2019, 11:50 UTC

The fire started on 31 December 2018 in Pibor, South Sudan, and satellites saw it burning for 10 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 9,243 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 138th largest in Jonglei since 2016 (of 427 with a page). Number 38 in South Sudan in 2018, of 120.

Burnt area
9,243ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
10days
31 Dec 2018 – 9 Jan 2019
Municipalities hit
1
counties
Started on
31 Dec
2018
Heat detections
239
in a single hotspot: 193 MW
Danger at start
23
High · FWI index
Energy released
2.8GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

9 Jan 2019
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 31 Dec9 Jan

How it evolved, day by day

31123456789

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

The weather it burned in

39°high
48km/h · peak gust
13%lowest humidity

It had gone 42 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

25% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,375 ha in 2016.

What happened to each town

  1. Pibor where it started
    9,300 ha reached on 31 Dec
    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)
31 Dec 35.3 °C 34 % 32 km/h 1.4 mm High 23
1 Jan 36.6 °C 29 % 37 km/h 0.3 mm High 33
2 Jan 36.2 °C 30 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
3 Jan 36.4 °C 25 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
4 Jan 37.3 °C 29 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
5 Jan 38.3 °C 24 % 48 km/h 0.1 mm Very high 48
6 Jan 38.9 °C 16 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
7 Jan 38.2 °C 15 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
8 Jan 38.4 °C 16 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
9 Jan 38.8 °C 13 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
10 Jan after 39.4 °C 13 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
11 Jan after 38.6 °C 14 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
12 Jan after 39.5 °C 12 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 69
13 Jan after 39.2 °C 14 % 56 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 73
14 Jan after 39.5 °C 14 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Very extreme 70
15 Jan after 39.7 °C 15 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
16 Jan after 38.6 °C 16 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
17 Jan after 39.1 °C 16 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
18 Jan after 39.0 °C 16 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
19 Jan after 38.9 °C 17 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 24 Dec 2018
After · 16 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 · 239Every 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 31 December 2018 and 9 January 2019: 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 9,243 hectares (92.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Pibor (9,300 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 38.9 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 48 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 57, 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.