Skip to content
worldfires
en
SS · South Sudan · →

Pibor fire, September 2026 Pibor

Out · last detection 9 Sept 2026, 12:02 UTC

The fire started on 1 September 2026 in Pibor, South Sudan, and satellites saw it burning for 9 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,204 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 287th largest in Jonglei since 2016 (of 427 with a page). Number 116 in South Sudan in 2026, of 183.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Pibor · 2018

Burnt area
6,204ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
9days
1 Sept 2026 – 9 Sept 2026
Municipalities hit
1
counties
Started on
1 Sept
2026
Heat detections
106
in a single hotspot: 85 MW
Danger at start
67
Extreme · FWI index
Average daily power
255MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 1 Sept9 Sept
9 Sept 2026

How it evolved, day by day

5 Sept 2026 · 214 MW · 14 6 Sept 2026 · 856 MW · 37 7 Sept 2026 · 56 MW · 17 8 Sept 2026 · 142 MW · 36 9 Sept 2026 · 5 MW · 2
5 Sept 6 Sept 7 Sept 8 Sept 9 Sept

Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.

The weather it burned in

40°high
56km/h · peak gust
18%lowest humidity

It had gone 15 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

43% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,181 ha in 2016, 1,827 ha in 2018, 21 ha in 2020, 38 ha in 2022, 631 ha in 2023, 600 ha in 2025. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 2,689 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

10 km
It burned the equivalent of 3.9% of the area of London (62 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each town

  1. Pibor where it started
    6,239 ha reached on 5 Sept
    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)
1 Sept 38.7 °C 20 % 56 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 67
2 Sept 39.7 °C 18 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 66
3 Sept 39.4 °C 19 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60
4 Sept 39.5 °C 19 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
5 Sept 39.0 °C 21 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
6 Sept 39.8 °C 21 % 51 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 65
7 Sept 39.5 °C 19 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
8 Sept 39.9 °C 20 % 55 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 68
9 Sept 38.9 °C 21 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
10 Sept after 37.8 °C 24 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 63
11 Sept after 39.5 °C 19 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
12 Sept after 39.6 °C 22 % 49 km/h 0.1 mm Extreme 62
13 Sept after 37.6 °C 26 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
14 Sept after 40.2 °C 22 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
15 Sept after 38.2 °C 21 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 62
16 Sept after 37.8 °C 23 % 54 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 63
17 Sept after 39.6 °C 18 % 47 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
18 Sept after 39.7 °C 17 % 34 km/h 0.1 mm Very high 48
19 Sept after 39.6 °C 22 % 49 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 60

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 25 Aug 2026
After · 16 Sept 2026

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 4 September 2026 the air beside the fire reached 34 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 22: 1.5 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak34 µg/m³
Days over the guideline1 day
PM1042 µg/m³
Optical depth0.69
3031123456789101112
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 · 106Every 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?
According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 1 September 2026 to 9 September 2026 (9 days). The perimeter dates it from 5 September 2026 to 9 September 2026.
How much area did it burn?
The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 6,204 hectares (62.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Pibor (6,239 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 39.9 °C, humidity dropped to 18 % and gusts hit 56 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 68, 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.

Report an error
What do you think is wrong?

We will only use your email to reply about this report. Privacy.

How we know this
  • Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery.
  • Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 5 September 2026 to 9 September 2026. 106 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
  • We have not matched this page with any official record.
  • Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.

How we build fire pages: methodology ›

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.