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Raga fire, 16 December 2016 Raga

Out · last detection 29 Dec 2016, 11:44 UTC

The fire started on 16 December 2016 in Raga, South Sudan, and satellites saw it burning for 13 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,439 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 293th largest in Western Bahr el Ghazal since 2016 (of 424 with a page). Number 159 in South Sudan in 2016, of 244.

Burnt area
6,439ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
13days
16 Dec 2016 – 28 Dec 2016
Municipalities hit
1
counties
Started on
16 Dec
2016
Heat detections
320
in a single hotspot: 93 MW
Danger at start
46
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
2.1GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

29 Dec 2016
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 16 Dec28 Dec

How it evolved, day by day

1617181920212223242526272829

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

The weather it burned in

36°high
45km/h · peak gust
13%lowest humidity

It had gone 27 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
    6,470 ha reached on 15 Dec
    0.1 %

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)
16 Dec 32.3 °C 14 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
17 Dec 32.2 °C 14 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
18 Dec 32.2 °C 13 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
19 Dec 32.7 °C 15 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
20 Dec 33.3 °C 14 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
21 Dec 34.1 °C 16 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
22 Dec 34.2 °C 17 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
23 Dec 35.5 °C 16 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
24 Dec 35.4 °C 17 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
25 Dec 33.8 °C 15 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
26 Dec 32.8 °C 16 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
27 Dec 31.9 °C 20 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
28 Dec 32.2 °C 19 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
29 Dec after 34.3 °C 17 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
30 Dec after 34.4 °C 14 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
31 Dec after 33.9 °C 12 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
1 Jan after 34.9 °C 14 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
2 Jan after 33.9 °C 14 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
3 Jan after 33.2 °C 15 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
4 Jan after 33.3 °C 14 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
5 Jan after 33.4 °C 14 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
6 Jan after 35.6 °C 12 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
7 Jan after 36.0 °C 11 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 9 Dec 2016
After · 4 Jan 2017

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 · 320Every 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 16 December 2016 and 28 December 2016: 13 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 6,439 hectares (64.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Raga (6,470 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 35.5 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 45 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 54, 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.

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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.