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Uror fire, 21 December 2018 Uror

Out · last detection 26 Dec 2018, 23:49 UTC

The fire started on 21 December 2018 in Uror, South Sudan, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 6,177 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 292th largest in Jonglei since 2016 (of 427 with a page). Number 74 in South Sudan in 2018, of 120.

Burnt area
6,177ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
6days
21 Dec 2018 – 26 Dec 2018
Municipalities hit
1
counties
Started on
21 Dec
2018
Heat detections
174
in a single hotspot: 223 MW
Danger at start
52
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
3.0GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

26 Dec 2018
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 21 Dec26 Dec

How it evolved, day by day

212223242526

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
42km/h · peak gust
20%lowest humidity

It had gone 40 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

21% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 127 ha in 2016, 1,160 ha in 2017.

What happened to each town

  1. Uror where it started
    6,215 ha reached on 21 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)
21 Dec 36.8 °C 23 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
22 Dec 36.3 °C 22 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
23 Dec 36.5 °C 20 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
24 Dec 36.5 °C 21 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
25 Dec 37.0 °C 21 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
26 Dec 36.4 °C 24 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
27 Dec after 36.9 °C 22 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 43
28 Dec after 37.0 °C 21 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
29 Dec after 36.7 °C 18 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 50
30 Dec after 35.4 °C 22 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
31 Dec after 35.6 °C 21 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 45
1 Jan after 35.8 °C 26 % 23 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 38
2 Jan after 37.5 °C 20 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
3 Jan after 37.3 °C 16 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
4 Jan after 37.5 °C 18 % 32 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
5 Jan after 37.4 °C 26 % 33 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 · 14 Dec 2018
After · 2 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 · 174Every 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 21 December 2018 and 26 December 2018: 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 6,177 hectares (61.8 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Uror (6,215 ha, 0.5 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.0 °C, humidity dropped to 20 % and gusts hit 42 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 52, 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.