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Pochalla fire, 23 January 2018 Pochalla

Out · last detection 25 Jan 2018, 10:53 UTC

The fire started on 23 January 2018 in Pochalla, South Sudan, and satellites saw it burning for 3 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,003 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 303th largest in Jonglei since 2016 (of 427 with a page). Number 78 in South Sudan in 2018, of 120.

Burnt area
6,003ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
3days
23 Jan 2018 – 25 Jan 2018
Municipalities hit
1
counties
Started on
23 Jan
2018
Heat detections
210
in a single hotspot: 239 MW
Danger at start
46
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
3.2GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

25 Jan 2018
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 23 Jan25 Jan

How it evolved, day by day

232425

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

The weather it burned in

39°high
33km/h · peak gust
16%lowest humidity

It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

17% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 804 ha in 2016, 231 ha in 2017.

What happened to each town

  1. Pochalla where it started
    6,040 ha reached on 19 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)
23 Jan 38.6 °C 16 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
24 Jan 39.4 °C 18 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
25 Jan 38.5 °C 16 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
26 Jan after 39.8 °C 14 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
27 Jan after 38.7 °C 13 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
28 Jan after 38.6 °C 14 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
29 Jan after 38.6 °C 12 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
30 Jan after 37.8 °C 12 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
31 Jan after 38.6 °C 12 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
1 Feb after 38.7 °C 12 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
2 Feb after 39.2 °C 12 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
3 Feb after 39.5 °C 21 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
4 Feb after 39.6 °C 18 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 16 Jan 2018
After · 1 Feb 2018

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 · 210Every 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 23 January 2018 and 25 January 2018: 3 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 6,003 hectares (60.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Pochalla (6,040 ha, 0.7 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 39.4 °C, humidity dropped to 16 % and gusts hit 33 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.