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Uror fire, 2 January 2022 Uror

Out · last detection 8 Jan 2022, 11:19 UTC

The fire started on 2 January 2022 in Uror, South Sudan, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 5,050 hectares from heat detections, spread across a single municipality.

It is the 417th largest in Jonglei since 2016 (of 427 with a page). Number 122 in South Sudan in 2022, of 124.

The power measured by the satellite is low (28.4 MW in the strongest hotspot), more typical of grass or stubble burning, or a slow surface fire, than of a large crown fire.

Burnt area
5,050ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
6days
2 Jan 2022 – 7 Jan 2022
Municipalities hit
1
counties
Started on
2 Jan
2022
Heat detections
122
in a single hotspot: 28 MW
Danger at start
57
Extreme · FWI index
Energy released
710MW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

8 Jan 2022
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 2 Jan7 Jan

How it evolved, day by day

234678

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
45km/h · peak gust
10%lowest humidity

It had gone 52 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

83% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 374 ha in 2016, 1,378 ha in 2017, 569 ha in 2018, 1,771 ha in 2020, 2,142 ha in 2021. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 4,177 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Uror where it started
    5,084 ha reached on 2 Jan
    0.4 %

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)
2 Jan 37.0 °C 10 % 39 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
3 Jan 36.3 °C 13 % 45 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 61
4 Jan 35.3 °C 14 % 41 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 58
5 Jan 36.3 °C 14 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
6 Jan 37.0 °C 14 % 37 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
7 Jan 37.3 °C 14 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 57
8 Jan after 37.0 °C 15 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 56
9 Jan after 37.6 °C 14 % 29 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 52
10 Jan after 37.5 °C 23 % 35 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 51
11 Jan after 37.3 °C 24 % 36 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
12 Jan after 38.7 °C 21 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 49
13 Jan after 38.8 °C 19 % 44 km/h 0.0 mm Extreme 55
14 Jan after 37.4 °C 23 % 27 km/h 0.2 mm Very high 46
15 Jan after 38.1 °C 20 % 22 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
16 Jan after 38.5 °C 17 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 46
17 Jan after 32.0 °C 36 % 30 km/h 0.0 mm High 38

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 26 Dec 2021
After · 14 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 · 122Every 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 2 January 2022 and 7 January 2022: 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 5,050 hectares (50.5 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire only entered Uror (5,084 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.3 °C, humidity dropped to 10 % and gusts hit 45 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 61, 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.