Pochalla fire, February 2022 Pochalla
The fire started on 17 February 2022 in Pochalla, South Sudan, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 8,148 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 178th largest in Jonglei since 2016 (of 428 with a page). Number 55 in South Sudan in 2022, of 124.
Compare with…
Suggestions: Pochalla · 2018Jore · 2016Pochalla · 2016Jore · 2016
- Burnt area
- 8,148ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 6days
- 17 Feb 2022 – 22 Feb 2022
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- counties
- Started on
- 17 Feb
- 2022
- Heat detections
- 294
- in a single hotspot: 52 MW
- Danger at start
- 50
- Extreme · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 444MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone 31 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
87% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 4,173 ha in 2016, 4,982 ha in 2018, 1,137 ha in 2019, 1,013 ha in 2020, 1,643 ha in 2021. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 7,087 ha that had burned before.
- 3,995 ha Pochalla fire, January 2018 8,042 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,995 ha Jore fire, December 2016 30,249 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,947 ha Pochalla fire, December 2016 6,815 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
How big is it?
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Paris boundary: geoBoundaries · Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière (IGN-F) (Etalab Open License 2.0).
Madrid boundary: geoBoundaries · Open Data ESRI, IGN Central Registry of Cartography Area (CC BY 4.0).
Berlin boundary: geoBoundaries · Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy (dl-de/by-2-0).
This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.
What happened to each town
-
Pochalla where it started8,207 ha reached on 17 Feb1.0 %
Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance runs from the point marking the centre of each area to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.
People and buildings inside the perimeter
GHSL 2020Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2020, satellite-based estimate).
This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned.
Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu
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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 18 Feb | 40.0 °C | 11 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 50 |
| 19 Feb | 40.6 °C | 8 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 62 |
| 20 Feb | 38.7 °C | 6 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 62 |
| 21 Feb | 36.1 °C | 9 % | 29 km/h | 0.1 mm | Extreme 56 |
| 22 Feb | 38.1 °C | 9 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 55 |
| 23 Feb after | 39.6 °C | 9 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 57 |
| 24 Feb after | 40.1 °C | 12 % | 23 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 25 Feb after | 39.2 °C | 11 % | 31 km/h | 0.8 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 26 Feb after | 38.9 °C | 22 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 27 Feb after | 40.3 °C | 10 % | 21 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 49 |
| 28 Feb after | 39.7 °C | 10 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 1 Mar after | 38.5 °C | 23 % | 37 km/h | 0.2 mm | Extreme 58 |
| 2 Mar after | 39.0 °C | 22 % | 29 km/h | 0.2 mm | Very high 49 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
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 · 294Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 30,249 haJore20 December 2016 · 37 days · 6 km away
- 64,789 haJore21 December 2016 · 48 days · 23 km away
- 201,499 haJoreJanuary 2022 · 82 days · 24 km away
- 23,559 haJore4 January 2019 · 21 days · 24 km away
- 76,225 haJoreFebruary 2026 · 45 days · 25 km away
- 23,872 haPochallaMarch 2024 · 16 days · 31 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Pochalla fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 17 February 2022 to 22 February 2022 (6 days). The perimeter dates it from 18 February 2022 to 20 February 2022.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 8,148 hectares (81.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Pochalla (8,207 ha, 1.0 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 40.6 °C, humidity dropped to 6 % and gusts hit 39 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 62, 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
History of this page · 2 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
- Last day with fire: 20 February 2022 → 22 February 2022.
- Start date: 18 February 2022 → 17 February 2022.
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
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 18 February 2022 to 20 February 2022. 294 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.
- Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2020, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.
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.