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Uror fire, 29 December 2021 Uror

Out · last detection 4 Jan 2022, 10:54 UTC

The fire started on 29 December 2021 in Uror, South Sudan, and satellites saw it burning for 7 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 8,453 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 164th largest in Jonglei since 2016 (of 427 with a page). Number 81 in South Sudan in 2021, of 212.

Burnt area
8,453ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
7days
29 Dec 2021 – 4 Jan 2022
Municipalities hit
1
counties
Started on
29 Dec
2021
Heat detections
250
in a single hotspot: 158 MW
Danger at start
53
Extreme · FWI index
Average daily power
1.4GW
detected power per day, on average

Where it burned

4 Jan 2022
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 29 Dec4 Jan

How it evolved, day by day

29 Dec 2021 · 1,463 MW · 82 31 Dec 2021 · 3,794 MW · 93 2 Jan 2022 · 1,469 MW · 43 3 Jan 2022 · 2 MW · 2 4 Jan 2022 · 358 MW · 16
29 Dec 31 Dec 2 Jan 3 Jan 4 Jan

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

The weather it burned in

39°high
48km/h · peak gust
9%lowest humidity

It had gone 55 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

60% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 3,447 ha in 2016, 1,042 ha in 2017, 626 ha in 2018, 2,536 ha in 2020. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 5,107 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Uror where it started
    8,517 ha reached on 29 Dec
    0.7 %

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)
29 Dec 34.6 °C 21 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 53
30 Dec 38.0 °C 17 % 46 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
31 Dec 37.8 °C 13 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
1 Jan 38.7 °C 10 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
2 Jan 37.0 °C 9 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 65
3 Jan 36.0 °C 12 % 48 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 68
4 Jan 35.4 °C 12 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 63
5 Jan after 36.4 °C 14 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
6 Jan after 37.3 °C 12 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 63
7 Jan after 37.7 °C 12 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 63
8 Jan after 37.1 °C 14 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
9 Jan after 37.9 °C 12 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
10 Jan after 38.1 °C 19 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 54
11 Jan after 37.4 °C 23 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
12 Jan after 39.0 °C 18 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
13 Jan after 39.3 °C 18 % 42 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
14 Jan after 37.6 °C 22 % 26 km/h 0.1 mm Very high 44

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 22 Dec 2021
After · 11 Jan 2022

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 · 250Every 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 29 December 2021 and 4 January 2022: 7 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 8,453 hectares (84.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Uror (8,517 ha, 0.7 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 38.7 °C, humidity dropped to 9 % and gusts hit 48 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 68, 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.