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Raga fire, 12 December 2018 Raga

Out · last detection 1 Jan 2019, 23:37 UTC

The fire started on 12 December 2018 in Raga, South Sudan, and satellites saw it burning for 20 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 76,587 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 11th largest in Western Bahr el Ghazal since 2016 (of 424 with a page). The largest in South Sudan in 2018, of 120.

Burnt area
76,587ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
20days
12 Dec 2018 – 31 Dec 2018
Municipalities hit
1
counties
Started on
12 Dec
2018
Heat detections
2,733
in a single hotspot: 362 MW
Danger at start
44
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
17.3GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

1 Jan 2019
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 12 Dec31 Dec

How it evolved, day by day

12131415161718192021222324252627282930311

Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.

The weather it burned in

35°high
40km/h · peak gust
12%lowest humidity

It had gone 37 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

74% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 40,499 ha in 2016, 36,581 ha in 2017. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 56,481 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Raga where it started
    61,250 ha reached on 7 Dec
    1.0 %

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)
12 Dec 33.0 °C 14 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
13 Dec 32.8 °C 13 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
14 Dec 32.8 °C 14 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
15 Dec 33.9 °C 15 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
16 Dec 35.0 °C 17 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
17 Dec 34.9 °C 13 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
18 Dec 33.0 °C 12 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
19 Dec 32.7 °C 14 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
20 Dec 32.0 °C 17 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
21 Dec 32.2 °C 16 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
22 Dec 31.6 °C 18 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
23 Dec 31.9 °C 14 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
24 Dec 32.3 °C 18 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
25 Dec 33.8 °C 18 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
26 Dec 34.5 °C 18 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
27 Dec 35.0 °C 17 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
28 Dec 34.5 °C 18 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
29 Dec 34.0 °C 16 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
30 Dec 32.9 °C 13 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
31 Dec 32.4 °C 14 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
1 Jan after 33.1 °C 15 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
2 Jan after 35.1 °C 16 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
3 Jan after 34.3 °C 17 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
4 Jan after 34.6 °C 13 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
5 Jan after 35.2 °C 17 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
6 Jan after 35.5 °C 18 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
7 Jan after 33.7 °C 15 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
8 Jan after 33.4 °C 12 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
9 Jan after 32.8 °C 14 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
10 Jan after 34.5 °C 14 % 35 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 · 5 Dec 2018
After · 7 Jan 2019

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 · 2,733Every 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 12 December 2018 and 31 December 2018: 20 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 76,587 hectares (765.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Raga (61,250 ha, 1.0 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 35.0 °C, humidity dropped to 12 % and gusts hit 40 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 50, 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.