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SS · South Sudan · →

Raga fire, 30 December 2017 Raga

Out · last detection 5 Jan 2018, 23:05 UTC

The fire started on 30 December 2017 in Raga, South Sudan, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,730 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 340th largest in Western Bahr el Ghazal since 2016 (of 424 with a page). Number 153 in South Sudan in 2017, of 203.

Burnt area
5,730ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
6days
30 Dec 2017 – 4 Jan 2018
Municipalities hit
1
counties
Started on
30 Dec
2017
Heat detections
247
in a single hotspot: 86 MW
Danger at start
50
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
2.2GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

5 Jan 2018
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 30 Dec4 Jan

How it evolved, day by day

303112345

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
45km/h · peak gust
12%lowest humidity

It had gone 41 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

79% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 4,690 ha in 2016.

What happened to each town

  1. Raga where it started
    5,744 ha reached on 23 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)
30 Dec 36.9 °C 12 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
31 Dec 35.1 °C 14 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
1 Jan 32.1 °C 15 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
2 Jan 31.6 °C 14 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
3 Jan 32.2 °C 13 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
4 Jan 32.3 °C 12 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
5 Jan after 31.7 °C 13 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
6 Jan after 32.8 °C 12 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
7 Jan after 33.5 °C 10 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
8 Jan after 33.7 °C 12 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
9 Jan after 33.4 °C 11 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
10 Jan after 34.2 °C 12 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
11 Jan after 35.3 °C 12 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
12 Jan after 36.1 °C 12 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
13 Jan after 37.3 °C 11 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
14 Jan after 36.9 °C 12 % 32 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 · 23 Dec 2017
After · 11 Jan 2018

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 · 247Every 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 30 December 2017 and 4 January 2018: 6 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 5,730 hectares (57.3 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Raga (5,744 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.9 °C, humidity dropped to 12 % and gusts hit 45 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 56, 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.