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Pibor fire, 5 December 2021 Pibor

Out · last detection 17 Dec 2021, 11:32 UTC

The fire started on 5 December 2021 in Pibor, South Sudan, and satellites saw it burning for 12 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,179 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 291th largest in Jonglei since 2016 (of 427 with a page). Number 149 in South Sudan in 2021, of 212.

Burnt area
6,179ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
12days
5 Dec 2021 – 16 Dec 2021
Municipalities hit
1
counties
Started on
5 Dec
2021
Heat detections
205
in a single hotspot: 56 MW
Danger at start
42
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
2.2GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

17 Dec 2021
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 5 Dec16 Dec

How it evolved, day by day

567891011121314151617

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
48km/h · peak gust
15%lowest humidity

It had gone 25 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

3% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 157 ha in 2020.

What happened to each town

  1. Pibor where it started
    6,227 ha reached on 28 Nov
    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)
5 Dec 37.0 °C 25 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
6 Dec 36.5 °C 27 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
7 Dec 37.3 °C 22 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
8 Dec 38.3 °C 15 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
9 Dec 37.7 °C 23 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
10 Dec 37.1 °C 23 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
11 Dec 38.0 °C 19 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
12 Dec 38.3 °C 15 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
13 Dec 38.4 °C 17 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
14 Dec 37.7 °C 21 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
15 Dec 37.5 °C 23 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
16 Dec 37.1 °C 24 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
17 Dec after 35.9 °C 24 % 23 km/h 0.2 mm Very high 40
18 Dec after 36.7 °C 23 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
19 Dec after 37.1 °C 17 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
20 Dec after 34.4 °C 18 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
21 Dec after 35.2 °C 20 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
22 Dec after 35.9 °C 21 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
23 Dec after 36.0 °C 20 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
24 Dec after 36.5 °C 21 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
25 Dec after 36.8 °C 22 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
26 Dec after 34.4 °C 35 % 26 km/h 0.1 mm High 36

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 28 Nov 2021
After · 23 Dec 2021

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 · 205Every 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 5 December 2021 and 16 December 2021: 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 6,179 hectares (61.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Pibor (6,227 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 38.4 °C, humidity dropped to 15 % and gusts hit 48 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.