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Pibor fire, 9 December 2024 Pibor

Out · last detection 14 Dec 2024, 22:34 UTC

The fire started on 9 December 2024 in Pibor, South Sudan, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,508 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 258th largest in Jonglei since 2016 (of 427 with a page). Number 110 in South Sudan in 2024, of 180.

Burnt area
6,508ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
6days
9 Dec 2024 – 14 Dec 2024
Municipalities hit
1
counties
Started on
9 Dec
2024
Heat detections
155
in a single hotspot: 158 MW
Danger at start
43
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
3.5GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

14 Dec 2024
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 9 Dec14 Dec

How it evolved, day by day

91011121314

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
47km/h · peak gust
20%lowest humidity

It had gone 14 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

89% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,131 ha in 2016, 1,955 ha in 2018, 1,810 ha in 2019, 1,587 ha in 2020, 2,077 ha in 2021, 3,979 ha in 2022, 399 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 5,773 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Pibor where it started
    6,550 ha reached on 9 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)
9 Dec 38.5 °C 20 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
10 Dec 37.9 °C 23 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
11 Dec 37.5 °C 26 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
12 Dec 36.7 °C 26 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
13 Dec 36.8 °C 24 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
14 Dec 37.2 °C 24 % 17 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
15 Dec after 37.0 °C 20 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
16 Dec after 37.3 °C 25 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
17 Dec after 36.8 °C 27 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
18 Dec after 35.8 °C 27 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
19 Dec after 37.0 °C 23 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
20 Dec after 37.3 °C 26 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
21 Dec after 37.2 °C 19 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
22 Dec after 34.9 °C 36 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
23 Dec after 34.5 °C 23 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
24 Dec after 35.8 °C 21 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 35

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 2 Dec 2024
After · 21 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 17 December 2024 the air beside the fire reached 39 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 28: 1.9 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak39 µg/m³
Days over the guideline8 days
PM1047 µg/m³
Optical depth0.78
7891011121314151617
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 · 155Every 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 9 December 2024 and 14 December 2024: 6 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 6,508 hectares (65.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Pibor (6,550 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 38.5 °C, humidity dropped to 20 % and gusts hit 47 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 48, 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.