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Pibor fire, 3 January 2019 Pibor

Out · last detection 15 Jan 2019, 22:34 UTC

The fire started on 3 January 2019 in Pibor, South Sudan, and satellites saw it burning for 12 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 7,311 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 211th largest in Jonglei since 2016 (of 427 with a page). Number 86 in South Sudan in 2019, of 150.

Burnt area
7,311ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
12days
3 Jan 2019 – 14 Jan 2019
Municipalities hit
1
counties
Started on
3 Jan
2019
Heat detections
418
in a single hotspot: 115 MW
Danger at start
35
High · FWI index
Energy released
2.6GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

15 Jan 2019
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 3 Jan14 Jan

How it evolved, day by day

3456789101112131415

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
47km/h · peak gust
14%lowest humidity

It had gone 28 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

1% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 82 ha in 2016.

What happened to each town

  1. Pibor where it started
    7,360 ha reached on 27 Dec
    0.2 %

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)
3 Jan 36.4 °C 26 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
4 Jan 37.0 °C 28 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
5 Jan 37.5 °C 27 % 40 km/h 0.2 mm Very high 40
6 Jan 38.3 °C 21 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
7 Jan 37.8 °C 18 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
8 Jan 37.8 °C 19 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
9 Jan 38.0 °C 16 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
10 Jan 38.5 °C 17 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
11 Jan 37.9 °C 21 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
12 Jan 38.9 °C 14 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
13 Jan 38.7 °C 17 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
14 Jan 38.9 °C 17 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
15 Jan after 39.6 °C 16 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
16 Jan after 38.8 °C 14 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
17 Jan after 39.0 °C 18 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
18 Jan after 38.9 °C 17 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
19 Jan after 38.6 °C 19 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
20 Jan after 38.9 °C 15 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
21 Jan after 38.7 °C 16 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
22 Jan after 39.5 °C 16 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
23 Jan after 38.7 °C 17 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
24 Jan after 38.4 °C 20 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 27 Dec 2018
After · 21 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 · 418Every 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 3 January 2019 and 14 January 2019: 12 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 7,311 hectares (73.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Pibor (7,360 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 38.9 °C, humidity dropped to 14 % and gusts hit 47 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 60, 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.