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Raga fire, 9 December 2017 Raga

Out · last detection 23 Dec 2017, 00:08 UTC

The fire started on 9 December 2017 in Raga, South Sudan, and satellites saw it burning for 14 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,997 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 317th largest in Western Bahr el Ghazal since 2016 (of 424 with a page). Number 138 in South Sudan in 2017, of 203.

Burnt area
5,997ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
14days
9 Dec 2017 – 22 Dec 2017
Municipalities hit
1
counties
Started on
9 Dec
2017
Heat detections
231
in a single hotspot: 124 MW
Danger at start
38
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
2.2GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

23 Dec 2017
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 9 Dec22 Dec

How it evolved, day by day

910111213141516171819202223

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
14%lowest humidity

It had gone 19 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

36% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,137 ha in 2016.

What happened to each town

  1. Raga where it started
    6,021 ha reached on 4 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)
9 Dec 33.5 °C 20 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
10 Dec 34.7 °C 17 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
11 Dec 34.9 °C 17 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 34
12 Dec 35.6 °C 14 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
13 Dec 35.0 °C 15 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
14 Dec 34.8 °C 16 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
15 Dec 34.3 °C 15 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
16 Dec 33.9 °C 16 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
17 Dec 33.9 °C 17 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
18 Dec 34.8 °C 17 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
19 Dec 35.3 °C 15 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
20 Dec 35.7 °C 16 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
21 Dec 36.1 °C 17 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
22 Dec 36.5 °C 14 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
23 Dec after 36.7 °C 11 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
24 Dec after 35.6 °C 13 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
25 Dec after 34.0 °C 16 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
26 Dec after 33.6 °C 16 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
27 Dec after 34.1 °C 16 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
28 Dec after 36.1 °C 15 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
29 Dec after 36.3 °C 13 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
30 Dec after 35.8 °C 13 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
31 Dec after 32.9 °C 15 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
1 Jan after 30.6 °C 16 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 2 Dec 2017
After · 29 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 · 231Every 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 9 December 2017 and 22 December 2017: 14 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 5,997 hectares (60.0 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Raga (6,021 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.5 °C, humidity dropped to 14 % and gusts hit 45 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 46, 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.