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Raga fire, 4 November 2017 Raga

Out · last detection 13 Nov 2017, 12:03 UTC

The fire started on 4 November 2017 in Raga, South Sudan, and satellites saw it burning for 9 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 7,794 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 221th largest in Western Bahr el Ghazal since 2016 (of 424 with a page). Number 85 in South Sudan in 2017, of 203.

Burnt area
7,794ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
9days
4 Nov 2017 – 12 Nov 2017
Municipalities hit
1
counties
Started on
4 Nov
2017
Heat detections
238
in a single hotspot: 105 MW
Danger at start
2
Very low · FWI index
Energy released
1.1GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

13 Nov 2017
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 4 Nov12 Nov

How it evolved, day by day

45678910111213

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
32km/h · peak gust
15%lowest humidity

It had gone 0 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

25% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,938 ha in 2016.

What happened to each town

  1. Raga where it started
    7,848 ha reached on 4 Nov
    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)
4 Nov 29.8 °C 54 % 21 km/h 4.0 mm Very low 2
5 Nov 33.9 °C 25 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 13
6 Nov 34.1 °C 23 % 27 km/h 0.0 mm Moderate 19
7 Nov 34.6 °C 16 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 23
8 Nov 35.7 °C 15 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
9 Nov 35.9 °C 16 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 28
10 Nov 36.5 °C 19 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
11 Nov 36.5 °C 16 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
12 Nov 36.2 °C 16 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
13 Nov after 35.5 °C 26 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
14 Nov after 37.0 °C 25 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
15 Nov after 37.4 °C 25 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
16 Nov after 36.9 °C 23 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
17 Nov after 37.3 °C 21 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
18 Nov after 35.9 °C 28 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
19 Nov after 36.4 °C 27 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
20 Nov after 36.8 °C 21 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
21 Nov after 36.6 °C 15 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
22 Nov after 35.1 °C 10 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 28 Oct 2017
After · 19 Nov 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 · 238Every 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 4 November 2017 and 12 November 2017: 9 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 7,794 hectares (77.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Raga (7,848 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.5 °C, humidity dropped to 15 % and gusts hit 32 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 32, 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.