Skip to content
worldfires
SS · South Sudan · →

Raga fire, 2 December 2017 Raga

Out · last detection 18 Dec 2017, 23:43 UTC

The fire started on 2 December 2017 in Raga, South Sudan, and satellites saw it burning for 16 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 30,143 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 36th largest in Western Bahr el Ghazal since 2016 (of 424 with a page). Number 8 in South Sudan in 2017, of 203.

Burnt area
30,143ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
16days
2 Dec 2017 – 17 Dec 2017
Municipalities hit
1
counties
Started on
2 Dec
2017
Heat detections
1,131
in a single hotspot: 103 MW
Danger at start
26
High · FWI index
Energy released
6.0GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

18 Dec 2017
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 2 Dec17 Dec

How it evolved, day by day

23456789101112131415161718

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
44km/h · peak gust
11%lowest humidity

It had gone 20 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

68% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 22,209 ha in 2016. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 20,426 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Raga where it started
    30,272 ha reached on 25 Nov
    0.5 %

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)
25 Nov 32.8 °C 17 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 26
26 Nov 33.4 °C 16 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
27 Nov 32.4 °C 18 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
28 Nov 33.2 °C 17 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
29 Nov 33.7 °C 22 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
30 Nov 34.2 °C 22 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 32
1 Dec 33.8 °C 16 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
2 Dec 33.1 °C 15 % 24 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
3 Dec 34.2 °C 16 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
4 Dec 34.8 °C 17 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
5 Dec 35.1 °C 18 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
6 Dec 35.3 °C 18 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
7 Dec 34.2 °C 18 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
8 Dec 33.3 °C 19 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
9 Dec 33.8 °C 19 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
10 Dec 34.9 °C 17 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
11 Dec 35.6 °C 15 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
12 Dec 36.0 °C 13 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
13 Dec 35.4 °C 14 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
14 Dec 35.0 °C 15 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
15 Dec 34.4 °C 15 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
16 Dec 34.0 °C 16 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
17 Dec 34.0 °C 16 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
18 Dec after 34.9 °C 16 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
19 Dec after 35.5 °C 15 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
20 Dec after 36.0 °C 15 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
21 Dec after 36.5 °C 16 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
22 Dec after 36.3 °C 14 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
23 Dec after 36.9 °C 11 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
24 Dec after 35.8 °C 12 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
25 Dec after 33.9 °C 16 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
26 Dec after 33.4 °C 16 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
27 Dec after 33.8 °C 16 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
28 Dec after 36.2 °C 15 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
29 Dec after 36.5 °C 13 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
30 Dec after 36.0 °C 12 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
31 Dec after 32.9 °C 15 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
1 Jan after 30.3 °C 15 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
2 Jan after 29.6 °C 14 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
3 Jan after 30.2 °C 11 % 37 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 · 25 Nov 2017
After · 24 Dec 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 · 1,131Every 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 2017 and 17 December 2017: 16 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 30,143 hectares (301.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Raga (30,272 ha, 0.5 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.9 °C, humidity dropped to 11 % and gusts hit 44 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 53, 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.

Report an error
What do you think is wrong?

We will only use your email to reply about this report. Privacy.

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.