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Uror fire, 15 December 2016 Uror

Out · last detection 20 Dec 2016, 11:13 UTC

The fire started on 15 December 2016 in Uror, South Sudan, and satellites saw it burning for 5 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,168 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 294th largest in Jonglei since 2016 (of 427 with a page). Number 174 in South Sudan in 2016, of 244.

Burnt area
6,168ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
5days
15 Dec 2016 – 19 Dec 2016
Municipalities hit
1
counties
Started on
15 Dec
2016
Heat detections
179
in a single hotspot: 142 MW
Danger at start
43
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
3.1GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

20 Dec 2016
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 15 Dec19 Dec

How it evolved, day by day

151617181920

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
41km/h · peak gust
16%lowest humidity

It had gone 23 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

No earlier perimeters overlap this fire since 2016, when the satellite record begins.

What happened to each town

  1. Uror where it started
    6,206 ha reached on 14 Dec
    0.5 %

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)
15 Dec 36.3 °C 18 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
16 Dec 36.6 °C 18 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
17 Dec 37.1 °C 16 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
18 Dec 37.2 °C 19 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 50
19 Dec 37.0 °C 21 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
20 Dec after 37.2 °C 19 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
21 Dec after 37.3 °C 21 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
22 Dec after 37.6 °C 23 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
23 Dec after 37.6 °C 24 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
24 Dec after 37.5 °C 23 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
25 Dec after 38.5 °C 20 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
26 Dec after 36.5 °C 22 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
27 Dec after 36.5 °C 22 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
28 Dec after 37.1 °C 20 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
29 Dec after 38.5 °C 16 % 40 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 · 8 Dec 2016
After · 26 Dec 2016

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 · 179Every 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 Uror fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 15 December 2016 and 19 December 2016: 5 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 6,168 hectares (61.7 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Uror (6,206 ha, 0.5 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.2 °C, humidity dropped to 16 % and gusts hit 41 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.