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Ulang fire, April 2018 Ulang

Out · last detection 4 May 2018, 11:37 UTC

The fire started on 23 April 2018 in Ulang, South Sudan, and satellites saw it burning for 12 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,320 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 256th largest in Upper Nile since 2016 (of 284 with a page). Number 106 in South Sudan in 2018, of 120.

Burnt area
5,320ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
12days
23 Apr 2018 – 4 May 2018
Municipalities hit
1
counties
Started on
23 Apr
2018
Heat detections
132
in a single hotspot: 79 MW
Danger at start
30
High · FWI index
Energy released
1.6GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

4 May 2018
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 23 Apr4 May

How it evolved, day by day

232526272829301234

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

The weather it burned in

41°high
55km/h · peak gust
22%lowest humidity

It had gone 6 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.1 mm on 5 May.

This area had burned before

88% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 1,988 ha in 2016, 6,747 ha in 2017. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 4,655 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Ulang where it started
    5,352 ha reached on 23 Apr
    1.1 %

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)
23 Apr 36.6 °C 35 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm High 30
24 Apr 37.5 °C 29 % 41 km/h 0.4 mm High 37
25 Apr 39.4 °C 26 % 40 km/h 0.6 mm Very high 38
26 Apr 37.5 °C 28 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 40
27 Apr 35.7 °C 35 % 37 km/h 0.1 mm High 34
28 Apr 37.5 °C 24 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 35
29 Apr 37.7 °C 31 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
30 Apr 38.2 °C 26 % 43 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
1 May 39.0 °C 28 % 53 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
2 May 37.8 °C 32 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
3 May 40.4 °C 22 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
4 May 40.8 °C 22 % 55 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 59
5 May after 40.7 °C 26 % 49 km/h 1.1 mm Very high 48

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 16 Apr 2018
After · 11 May 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 · 132Every 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 Ulang fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 23 April 2018 and 4 May 2018: 12 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 5,320 hectares (53.2 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Ulang (5,352 ha, 1.1 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 40.8 °C, humidity dropped to 22 % and gusts hit 55 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 59, 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.