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Pochalla fire, January 2016 Pochalla

Out · last detection 10 Jan 2016, 10:42 UTC

The fire started on 5 January 2016 in Pochalla, South Sudan, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,977 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 306th largest in Jonglei since 2016 (of 427 with a page). Number 184 in South Sudan in 2016, of 244.

Burnt area
5,977ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
5days
5 Jan 2016 – 9 Jan 2016
Municipalities hit
1
counties
Started on
5 Jan
2016
Heat detections
128
in a single hotspot: 270 MW
Danger at start
27
High · FWI index
Energy released
3.9GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

10 Jan 2016
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 5 Jan9 Jan

How it evolved, day by day

578910

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
28km/h · peak gust
20%lowest humidity

It had gone 30 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

What happened to each town

  1. Pochalla where it started
    6,013 ha reached on 5 Jan
    0.7 %

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 Jan 35.7 °C 33 % 19 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
6 Jan 34.6 °C 34 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
7 Jan 38.0 °C 27 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 27
8 Jan 38.2 °C 26 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
9 Jan 38.3 °C 20 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
10 Jan after 38.7 °C 17 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
11 Jan after 38.2 °C 23 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
12 Jan after 37.6 °C 29 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
13 Jan after 36.9 °C 25 % 20 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
14 Jan after 37.9 °C 26 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
15 Jan after 35.9 °C 30 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
16 Jan after 36.5 °C 32 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
17 Jan after 37.4 °C 27 % 21 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
18 Jan after 38.6 °C 16 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
19 Jan after 37.7 °C 17 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 29 Dec 2015
After · 16 Jan 2016

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 · 128Every 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 Pochalla fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 5 January 2016 and 9 January 2016: 5 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 5,977 hectares (59.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Pochalla (6,013 ha, 0.7 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 38.3 °C, humidity dropped to 20 % and gusts hit 28 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 33, class 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.