Pibor fire, 13 January 2019 Pibor
The fire started on 13 January 2019 in Pibor, South Sudan, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,977 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 235th largest in Jonglei since 2016 (of 427 with a page). Number 95 in South Sudan in 2019, of 150.
Compare with…
Suggestions: Pibor · 2021Pibor · 2022Pibor · 2026Pibor · 2018
- Burnt area
- 6,977ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 3days
- 13 Jan 2019 – 15 Jan 2019
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- counties
- Started on
- 13 Jan
- 2019
- Heat detections
- 234
- in a single hotspot: 252 MW
- Danger at start
- 64
- Extreme · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 1.8GW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone 56 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
34% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 604 ha in 2016, 1,970 ha in 2018. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,387 ha that had burned before.
How big is it?
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Paris boundary: geoBoundaries · Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière (IGN-F) (Etalab Open License 2.0).
Madrid boundary: geoBoundaries · Open Data ESRI, IGN Central Registry of Cartography Area (CC BY 4.0).
Berlin boundary: geoBoundaries · Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy (dl-de/by-2-0).
This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.
What happened to each town
-
Pibor where it started7,020 ha reached on 13 Jan0.2 %
Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance runs from the point marking the centre of each area 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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 13 Jan | 38.9 °C | 16 % | 52 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 64 |
| 14 Jan | 39.2 °C | 16 % | 48 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 62 |
| 15 Jan | 39.7 °C | 16 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 16 Jan after | 38.7 °C | 14 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 17 Jan after | 39.3 °C | 18 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 18 Jan after | 38.9 °C | 17 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 50 |
| 19 Jan after | 38.8 °C | 18 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 20 Jan after | 39.1 °C | 15 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 47 |
| 21 Jan after | 38.7 °C | 17 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 22 Jan after | 39.8 °C | 15 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 23 Jan after | 38.9 °C | 17 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 24 Jan after | 38.8 °C | 18 % | 43 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 60 |
| 25 Jan after | 39.5 °C | 19 % | 47 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 64 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
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 · 234Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 17,430 haPibor1 February 2021 · 6 days · 7 km away
- 13,141 haPibor4 February 2022 · 9 days · 19 km away
- 25,046 haPibor4 January 2026 · 13 days · 27 km away
- 12,737 haPibor28 January 2018 · 4 days · 32 km away
- 13,587 haPibor28 November 2024 · 15 days · 34 km away
- 43,938 haPibor24 December 2018 · 5 days · 40 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Pibor fire last?
- GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 13 January 2019 and 15 January 2019: 3 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 6,977 hectares (69.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Pibor (7,020 ha, 0.2 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 39.7 °C, humidity dropped to 16 % and gusts hit 52 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 64, 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
History of this page Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
No changes since 24 October 2026.
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.
Report an error
How we know this
- Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery.
- Dates from the perimeter: the VIIRS detections inside it did not change them. 234 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
- We have not matched this page with any official record.
- Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
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.