Raga fire, 30 January 2024 Raga
The fire started on 30 January 2024 in Raga, South Sudan, and satellites saw it burning for 12 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,337 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.
It is the 384th largest in Western Bahr el Ghazal since 2016 (of 424 with a page). Number 159 in South Sudan in 2024, of 185.
The power measured by the satellite is low (24.4 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.
Compare with…
Suggestions: Raga · 2016Raga · 2019Raga · 2017Djema · 2018
- Burnt area
- 5,337ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 12days
- 30 Jan 2024 – 10 Feb 2024
- Municipalities hit
- 1
- counties
- Started on
- 30 Jan
- 2024
- Heat detections
- 359
- in a single hotspot: 24 MW
- Danger at start
- 60
- Extreme · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 104MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
93% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 2,917 ha in 2016, 782 ha in 2017, 3,088 ha in 2018, 1,713 ha in 2019, 526 ha in 2020, 986 ha in 2021, 1,634 ha in 2022, 964 ha in 2023. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 4,958 ha that had burned before.
- 2,139 ha Raga fire, December 2016 52,041 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,713 ha Raga fire, December 2019 77,377 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 782 ha Raga fire, December 2017 6,000 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 524 ha Djema fire, December 2018 83,573 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
How big is it?
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Paris boundary: geoBoundaries · Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière (IGN-F) (Etalab Open License 2.0).
Madrid boundary: geoBoundaries · Open Data ESRI, IGN Central Registry of Cartography Area (CC BY 4.0).
Berlin boundary: geoBoundaries · Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy (dl-de/by-2-0).
This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.
What happened to each town
-
Raga where it started4,521 ha reached on 30 Jan0.1 %
Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance runs from the point marking the centre of each area 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) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 Feb | 33.1 °C | 11 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 60 |
| 2 Feb | 32.9 °C | 11 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 58 |
| 3 Feb | 34.4 °C | 10 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 56 |
| 4 Feb | 34.8 °C | 10 % | 37 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 57 |
| 5 Feb | 34.0 °C | 10 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 59 |
| 6 Feb | 32.0 °C | 12 % | 43 km/h | 0.1 mm | Extreme 60 |
| 7 Feb | 34.3 °C | 10 % | 40 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 58 |
| 8 Feb | 36.2 °C | 11 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 9 Feb | 37.8 °C | 12 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 10 Feb | 38.4 °C | 13 % | 27 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 50 |
| 11 Feb after | 37.6 °C | 13 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 12 Feb after | 38.6 °C | 9 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 13 Feb after | 38.9 °C | 9 % | 31 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 14 Feb after | 38.9 °C | 11 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 15 Feb after | 37.6 °C | 16 % | 33 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 16 Feb after | 36.2 °C | 10 % | 30 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 17 Feb after | 35.4 °C | 11 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 58 |
| 18 Feb after | 36.7 °C | 9 % | 38 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 59 |
| 19 Feb after | 37.0 °C | 8 % | 39 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 59 |
| 20 Feb after | 36.2 °C | 7 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 58 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.
The smoke
CAMS · CopernicusOn 7 February 2024 the air beside the fire reached 34 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 28: 1.9 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
Particles from the Copernicus CAMS model at the centre of the perimeter; these are not measurements in each town. The pale bar is the worst hour, the solid one the daily average.
Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS)
Detections table · 359Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
- 52,041 haRaga8 December 2016 · 46 days · 24 km away
- 70,821 haRaga22 December 2025 · 38 days · 26 km away
- 83,573 haDjema8 December 2018 · 37 days · 27 km away
- 623,165 haDjema21 December 2025 · 51 days · 28 km away
- 53,156 haDjema24 December 2022 · 27 days · 39 km away
- 73,476 haDjema12 December 2019 · 28 days · 40 km away
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Raga fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 30 January 2024 to 10 February 2024 (12 days). The perimeter dates it from 1 February 2024 to 10 February 2024.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 5,337 hectares (53.4 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire only entered Raga (4,521 ha, 0.1 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 38.4 °C, humidity dropped to 10 % and gusts hit 43 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 60, 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
History of this page · 1 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
- Start date: 1 February 2024 → 30 January 2024.
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
How we know this
- Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery.
- Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 1 February 2024 to 10 February 2024. 359 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
- We have not matched this page with any official record.
- Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
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.