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SS · South Sudan · →

Raga fire, 23 October 2016 Raga

Out · last detection 28 Oct 2016, 23:43 UTC

The fire started on 23 October 2016 in Raga, South Sudan, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 10,005 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 151th largest in Western Bahr el Ghazal since 2016 (of 424 with a page). Number 73 in South Sudan in 2016, of 244.

Burnt area
10,005ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
5days
23 Oct 2016 – 27 Oct 2016
Municipalities hit
1
counties
Started on
23 Oct
2016
Heat detections
244
in a single hotspot: 66 MW
Danger at start
23
High · FWI index
Energy released
2.2GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

28 Oct 2016
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 23 Oct27 Oct

How it evolved, day by day

232425262728

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

The weather it burned in

37°high
32km/h · peak gust
20%lowest humidity

It had gone 4 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. Raga where it started
    10,105 ha reached on 23 Oct
    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)
23 Oct 35.3 °C 23 % 31 km/h 0.1 mm High 23
24 Oct 36.2 °C 20 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
25 Oct 36.8 °C 23 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 25
26 Oct 36.0 °C 24 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
27 Oct 33.5 °C 35 % 32 km/h 0.2 mm High 25
28 Oct after 35.7 °C 28 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
29 Oct after 36.7 °C 23 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
30 Oct after 37.0 °C 17 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
31 Oct after 37.8 °C 19 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
1 Nov after 37.8 °C 18 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
2 Nov after 37.6 °C 17 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
3 Nov after 37.4 °C 16 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
4 Nov after 36.8 °C 17 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
5 Nov after 36.5 °C 16 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
6 Nov after 36.8 °C 15 % 36 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 · 16 Oct 2016
After · 3 Nov 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 · 244Every 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 Raga fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 23 October 2016 and 27 October 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 10,005 hectares (100.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Raga (10,105 ha, 0.2 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.8 °C, humidity dropped to 20 % and gusts hit 32 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 26, 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.