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Raga fire, 2 December 2016 Raga

Out · last detection 10 Dec 2016, 23:37 UTC

The fire started on 2 December 2016 in Raga, South Sudan, and satellites saw it burning for 8 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 18,115 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 71th largest in Western Bahr el Ghazal since 2016 (of 424 with a page). Number 30 in South Sudan in 2016, of 244.

Burnt area
18,115ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
8days
2 Dec 2016 – 9 Dec 2016
Municipalities hit
1
counties
Started on
2 Dec
2016
Heat detections
643
in a single hotspot: 155 MW
Danger at start
33
High · FWI index
Average daily power
638MW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

10 Dec 2016
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 2 Dec9 Dec

How it evolved, day by day

2 Dec 2016 · 653 MW · 43 3 Dec 2016 · 1,239 MW · 116 4 Dec 2016 · 1,992 MW · 235 5 Dec 2016 · 1,495 MW · 123 6 Dec 2016 · 19 MW · 16 7 Dec 2016 · 202 MW · 36 8 Dec 2016 · 86 MW · 23 9 Dec 2016 · 36 MW · 18 10 Dec 2016 · 19 MW · 9
2 Dec 4 Dec 6 Dec 8 Dec 10 Dec

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
38km/h · peak gust
11%lowest humidity

It had gone 13 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
    18,208 ha reached on 28 Nov
    0.3 %

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)
2 Dec 33.8 °C 27 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
3 Dec 34.1 °C 21 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
4 Dec 34.1 °C 20 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
5 Dec 34.7 °C 21 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
6 Dec 35.7 °C 15 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
7 Dec 34.6 °C 16 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
8 Dec 34.7 °C 11 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
9 Dec 34.1 °C 11 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
10 Dec after 34.5 °C 15 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
11 Dec after 33.6 °C 15 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
12 Dec after 34.0 °C 16 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
13 Dec after 34.6 °C 13 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
14 Dec after 33.2 °C 13 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
15 Dec after 32.3 °C 12 % 25 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
16 Dec after 32.5 °C 14 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
17 Dec after 32.4 °C 13 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
18 Dec after 32.4 °C 13 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
19 Dec after 33.0 °C 15 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 25 Nov 2016
After · 16 Dec 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 · 643Every 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 2 December 2016 and 9 December 2016: 8 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 18,115 hectares (181.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Raga (18,208 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 35.7 °C, humidity dropped to 11 % and gusts hit 38 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 45, 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.