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Pibor fire, 30 November 2024 Pibor

Out · last detection 23 Dec 2024, 10:28 UTC

The fire started on 30 November 2024 in Pibor, South Sudan, and satellites saw it burning for 23 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 11,267 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 101th largest in Jonglei since 2016 (of 427 with a page). Number 50 in South Sudan in 2024, of 180.

Burnt area
11,267ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
23days
30 Nov 2024 – 22 Dec 2024
Municipalities hit
1
counties
Started on
30 Nov
2024
Heat detections
526
in a single hotspot: 211 MW
Danger at start
34
High · FWI index
Energy released
6.7GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

23 Dec 2024
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 30 Nov22 Dec

How it evolved, day by day

301234567891011121314151617181920212223

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
41km/h · peak gust
15%lowest humidity

It had gone 3 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

86% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 153 ha in 2016, 1,883 ha in 2017, 2,898 ha in 2020, 6,930 ha in 2021, 1,813 ha in 2022, 3,721 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 9,705 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Pibor where it started
    11,351 ha reached on 28 Nov
    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)
30 Nov 35.8 °C 20 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
1 Dec 36.3 °C 18 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
2 Dec 36.2 °C 15 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
3 Dec 35.9 °C 25 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
4 Dec 36.3 °C 20 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
5 Dec 36.2 °C 20 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
6 Dec 36.3 °C 24 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
7 Dec 37.5 °C 21 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
8 Dec 37.8 °C 18 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
9 Dec 37.8 °C 21 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
10 Dec 36.7 °C 25 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
11 Dec 37.8 °C 24 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
12 Dec 36.2 °C 27 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
13 Dec 36.6 °C 25 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
14 Dec 37.5 °C 20 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
15 Dec 37.6 °C 19 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
16 Dec 36.1 °C 25 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
17 Dec 36.9 °C 28 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
18 Dec 36.1 °C 28 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
19 Dec 37.8 °C 20 % 18 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
20 Dec 38.1 °C 16 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
21 Dec 37.5 °C 15 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
22 Dec 35.2 °C 19 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
23 Dec after 35.8 °C 16 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
24 Dec after 36.8 °C 17 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
25 Dec after 35.7 °C 17 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
26 Dec after 35.6 °C 16 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
27 Dec after 34.1 °C 21 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
28 Dec after 33.4 °C 26 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
29 Dec after 36.6 °C 21 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
30 Dec after 36.6 °C 23 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
31 Dec after 37.1 °C 22 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
1 Jan after 36.6 °C 21 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 23 Nov 2024
After · 29 Dec 2024

If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.

The smoke

CAMS · Copernicus

On 23 December 2024 the air beside the fire reached 151 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 72: 4.8 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak151 µg/m³
Days over the guideline26 days
PM10157 µg/m³
Optical depth1.24
28293012345678910111213141516171819202122232425
Good Fair Moderate Poor Very poor Extremely poor

Particles from the Copernicus CAMS model at the centre of the perimeter; these are not measurements in each town. The pale bar is the worst hour, the solid one the daily average.

Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS)

Detections table · 526Every 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 30 November 2024 and 22 December 2024: 23 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 11,267 hectares (112.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Pibor (11,351 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 38.1 °C, humidity dropped to 15 % and gusts hit 41 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 49, class Very high.
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.