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Pibor fire, January 2025 Pibor

Out · last detection 17 Jan 2025, 11:00 UTC

The fire started on 14 January 2025 in Pibor, South Sudan, and satellites saw it burning for 4 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,514 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 355th largest in Jonglei since 2016 (of 427 with a page). Number 249 in South Sudan in 2025, of 292.

Burnt area
5,514ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
4days
14 Jan 2025 – 17 Jan 2025
Municipalities hit
1
counties
Started on
14 Jan
2025
Heat detections
174
in a single hotspot: 63 MW
Danger at start
38
High · FWI index
Energy released
1.9GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

17 Jan 2025
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 14 Jan17 Jan

How it evolved, day by day

14151617

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
19%lowest humidity

It had gone 49 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

84% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,308 ha in 2016, 69 ha in 2017, 1,634 ha in 2018, 178 ha in 2019, 1,130 ha in 2021, 3,411 ha in 2022, 400 ha in 2023, 95 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 4,652 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Pibor where it started
    5,549 ha reached on 12 Jan
    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)
14 Jan 36.1 °C 26 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
15 Jan 38.5 °C 19 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
16 Jan 37.9 °C 22 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
17 Jan 38.1 °C 19 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
18 Jan after 38.7 °C 19 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
19 Jan after 39.2 °C 20 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
20 Jan after 39.0 °C 18 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
21 Jan after 38.4 °C 19 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
22 Jan after 38.2 °C 18 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
23 Jan after 38.2 °C 24 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
24 Jan after 37.2 °C 18 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
25 Jan after 37.7 °C 20 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
26 Jan after 38.2 °C 14 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
27 Jan after 37.6 °C 13 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 7 Jan 2025
After · 24 Jan 2025

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 15 January 2025 the air beside the fire reached 80 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 48: 3.2 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak80 µg/m³
Days over the guideline9 days
PM1083 µg/m³
Optical depth0.98
121314151617181920
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 · 174Every 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 14 January 2025 and 17 January 2025: 4 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 5,514 hectares (55.1 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Pibor (5,549 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 38.5 °C, humidity dropped to 19 % and gusts hit 48 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 55, 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.