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Raga fire, 8 November 2019 Raga

Out · last detection 14 Nov 2019, 11:57 UTC

The fire started on 8 November 2019 in Raga, South Sudan, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 8,455 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 194th largest in Western Bahr el Ghazal since 2016 (of 424 with a page). Number 71 in South Sudan in 2019, of 150.

Burnt area
8,455ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
6days
8 Nov 2019 – 13 Nov 2019
Municipalities hit
1
counties
Started on
8 Nov
2019
Heat detections
273
in a single hotspot: 45 MW
Danger at start
24
High · FWI index
Energy released
1.4GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

14 Nov 2019
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 8 Nov13 Nov

How it evolved, day by day

891011121314

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
39km/h · peak gust
12%lowest humidity

It had gone 12 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

37% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,921 ha in 2016, 1,628 ha in 2017, 296 ha in 2018. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 3,170 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Raga where it started
    8,532 ha reached on 8 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)
8 Nov 35.3 °C 24 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm High 24
9 Nov 35.0 °C 16 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 31
10 Nov 35.8 °C 12 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
11 Nov 36.1 °C 13 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 36
12 Nov 35.7 °C 17 % 26 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
13 Nov 36.2 °C 22 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm High 29
14 Nov after 37.3 °C 24 % 33 km/h 0.1 mm High 31
15 Nov after 37.1 °C 19 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 33
16 Nov after 37.1 °C 16 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm High 37
17 Nov after 36.9 °C 18 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
18 Nov after 36.4 °C 14 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 39
19 Nov after 36.5 °C 12 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm High 38
20 Nov after 36.3 °C 11 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
21 Nov after 35.5 °C 14 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
22 Nov after 35.4 °C 13 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 41
23 Nov after 35.4 °C 11 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 1 Nov 2019
After · 20 Nov 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 · 273Every 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 8 November 2019 and 13 November 2019: 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 8,455 hectares (84.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Raga (8,532 ha, 0.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 36.2 °C, humidity dropped to 12 % and gusts hit 39 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 36, 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.