How long did the Pibor fire last?

GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 27 November 2021 and 15 December 2021: 19 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 21,792 hectares (217.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire only entered Pibor (21,938 ha, 0.7 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 38.7 °C, humidity dropped to 14 % and gusts hit 55 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 67, 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.

SS · South Sudan · 2021-11-27 → 2021-12-15

Pibor fire, 27 November 2021 Pibor

Out · last detection 16 Dec 2021, 11:51 UTC

The fire started on 27 November 2021 in Pibor, South Sudan, and satellites saw it burning for 19 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 21,792 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 28th largest in Jonglei since 2016 (of 427 with a page). Number 14 in South Sudan in 2021, of 212.

Burnt area: 21,792ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 19days; 27 Nov 2021 – 15 Dec 2021
Municipalities hit: 1; counties
Started on: 27 Nov; 2021
Heat detections: 1,098; in a single hotspot: 135 MW
Danger at start: 44; Very high · FWI index
Energy released: 13.5GW; sum of detected power

Play back 16 Dec 2021

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 27 Nov15 Dec

How it evolved, day by day

2728293012345678910111213141516

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

55km/h · peak gust

14%lowest humidity

It had gone 17 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

62% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 23 ha in 2016, 3,336 ha in 2017, 15,916 ha in 2020. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 13,550 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

Pibor where it started

21,938 ha reached on 25 Nov

0.7 %

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)
27 Nov	36.1 °C	27 %	39 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44
28 Nov	36.4 °C	29 %	45 km/h	0.1 mm	Very high 48
29 Nov	37.4 °C	28 %	49 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 51
30 Nov	37.5 °C	24 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 47
1 Dec	37.0 °C	23 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 48
2 Dec	37.0 °C	21 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 50
3 Dec	36.8 °C	24 %	47 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 51
4 Dec	37.1 °C	26 %	46 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 51
5 Dec	36.7 °C	26 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 51
6 Dec	36.3 °C	27 %	48 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 54
7 Dec	37.2 °C	24 %	46 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 52
8 Dec	37.7 °C	19 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 46
9 Dec	37.5 °C	25 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
10 Dec	37.5 °C	22 %	46 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 53
11 Dec	38.3 °C	18 %	48 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 56
12 Dec	38.6 °C	14 %	55 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 67
13 Dec	38.7 °C	16 %	53 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 65
14 Dec	38.1 °C	21 %	46 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 59
15 Dec	37.6 °C	25 %	40 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 53
16 Dec after	37.6 °C	23 %	48 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 58
17 Dec after	36.2 °C	28 %	33 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 43
18 Dec after	37.7 °C	25 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
19 Dec after	37.2 °C	17 %	34 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 46
20 Dec after	34.1 °C	27 %	32 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44
21 Dec after	33.9 °C	22 %	26 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
22 Dec after	35.8 °C	20 %	28 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 41
23 Dec after	36.1 °C	30 %	29 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
24 Dec after	36.1 °C	25 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
25 Dec after	36.5 °C	30 %	27 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 20 Nov 2021

After · 22 Dec 2021

Before After

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 · 1,098Every 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 time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

Other fires nearby

All fires in South Sudan ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Pibor fire last?: GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 27 November 2021 and 15 December 2021: 19 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 21,792 hectares (217.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire only entered Pibor (21,938 ha, 0.7 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 38.7 °C, humidity dropped to 14 % and gusts hit 55 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 67, 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

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

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.

Where it burned