How long did the Ibba fire last?

According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 28 December 2019 to 23 January 2020 (27 days). The perimeter dates it from 30 December 2019 to 16 January 2020.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 25,259 hectares (252.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 2 municipalities: Yambio (21,748 ha, 2.5 %); Ibba (3,690 ha, 0.4 %).

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 38.2 °C, humidity dropped to 10 % and gusts hit 41 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 55, 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.

SS · South Sudan · 2019-12-28 → 2020-01-23

Ibba fire, 28 December 2019 Yambio, Ibba

Out · last detection 23 Jan 2020, 22:40 UTC

The fire started on 28 December 2019 in Ibba, South Sudan, and satellites saw it burning for 27 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 25,259 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.

It is the 43th largest in Western Equatoria since 2016 (of 359 with a page). Number 19 in South Sudan in 2019, of 150.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Yambio · 2018 Yambio · 2017 Ibba · 2017 Ibba · 2016

Burnt area: 25,259ha; GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration: 27days; 28 Dec 2019 – 23 Jan 2020
Municipalities hit: 2; counties
Started on: 28 Dec; 2019
Heat detections: 946; in a single hotspot: 137 MW
Danger at start: 42; Very high · FWI index
Average daily power: 471MW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 28 Dec23 Jan

Play back 23 Jan 2020

How it evolved, day by day

28 Dec 1 Jan 5 Jan 9 Jan 13 Jan 17 Jan 22 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

38°high

41km/h · peak gust

10%lowest humidity

It had gone 11 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

89% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 14,499 ha in 2016, 13,829 ha in 2017, 15,733 ha in 2018, 399 ha in 2019. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 22,603 ha that had burned before.

How big is it?

It burned the equivalent of 16% of the area of London (253 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each town

Yambio

21,748 ha reached on 30 Dec

2.5 %
Ibba where it started

3,690 ha reached on 28 Dec

0.4 %

Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the GWIS perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance runs from the point marking the centre of each area to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.

People and buildings inside the perimeter

GHSL 2020

Built-up area< 0.1 ha

Residents< 20

Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2020, satellite-based estimate).

This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned.

Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu

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	Danger (FWI)
28 Dec	33.9 °C	15 %	34 km/h	Very high 42
29 Dec	34.9 °C	13 %	29 km/h	Very high 40
30 Dec	35.5 °C	15 %	31 km/h	Very high 42
31 Dec	36.0 °C	20 %	31 km/h	Very high 42
1 Jan	35.9 °C	22 %	35 km/h	Very high 43
2 Jan	35.8 °C	24 %	34 km/h	Very high 41
3 Jan	36.6 °C	22 %	40 km/h	Very high 48
4 Jan	35.5 °C	23 %	35 km/h	Very high 43
5 Jan	32.9 °C	21 %	27 km/h	Very high 41
6 Jan	34.0 °C	20 %	34 km/h	Very high 44
7 Jan	35.2 °C	21 %	36 km/h	Very high 45
8 Jan	36.0 °C	17 %	41 km/h	Very high 47
9 Jan	34.9 °C	15 %	39 km/h	Very high 47
10 Jan	34.4 °C	14 %	37 km/h	Very high 47
11 Jan	33.7 °C	12 %	35 km/h	Very high 48
12 Jan	32.2 °C	10 %	33 km/h	Very high 48
13 Jan	33.6 °C	11 %	27 km/h	Very high 44
14 Jan	36.1 °C	13 %	32 km/h	Very high 47
15 Jan	37.3 °C	15 %	30 km/h	Very high 46
16 Jan	37.8 °C	19 %	32 km/h	Very high 48
17 Jan	38.2 °C	18 %	33 km/h	Very high 48
18 Jan	36.3 °C	15 %	32 km/h	Extreme 51
19 Jan	34.1 °C	14 %	31 km/h	Very high 49
20 Jan	33.9 °C	15 %	39 km/h	Extreme 54
21 Jan	33.7 °C	17 %	40 km/h	Extreme 54
22 Jan	33.5 °C	12 %	36 km/h	Extreme 52
23 Jan	32.8 °C	12 %	39 km/h	Extreme 55
24 Jan after	33.0 °C	12 %	38 km/h	Extreme 54
25 Jan after	33.5 °C	13 %	37 km/h	Extreme 54
26 Jan after	34.0 °C	14 %	37 km/h	Extreme 53
27 Jan after	35.2 °C	14 %	35 km/h	Extreme 52
28 Jan after	36.4 °C	12 %	34 km/h	Extreme 51
29 Jan after	36.5 °C	15 %	35 km/h	Extreme 52
30 Jan after	35.8 °C	16 %	33 km/h	Extreme 52
31 Jan after	35.0 °C	13 %	26 km/h	Very high 47
1 Feb after	34.3 °C	26 %	23 km/h	Very high 43
2 Feb after	36.5 °C	17 %	28 km/h	Very high 43

Before and after, from space

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

↔

Before · 21 Dec 2019

After · 30 Jan 2020

Before After

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 · 946Every 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 time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

Other fires nearby

All fires in South Sudan ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Ibba fire last?: According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 28 December 2019 to 23 January 2020 (27 days). The perimeter dates it from 30 December 2019 to 16 January 2020.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 25,259 hectares (252.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 2 municipalities: Yambio (21,748 ha, 2.5 %); Ibba (3,690 ha, 0.4 %).
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 38.2 °C, humidity dropped to 10 % and gusts hit 41 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 55, 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

NASA FIRMS ↗
GWIS · Copernicus ↗

History of this page · 2 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.

26 October 2026 Last day with fire: 16 January 2020 → 23 January 2020.
26 October 2026 Start date: 30 December 2019 → 28 December 2019.

RSS Changes to this page

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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What do you think is wrong?

Dates or duration Place or towns Burned area Name It was not a wildfire Same fire as another page Something else

What really happened?

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How we know this

Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery; 3 polygons grouped in this page.
Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 30 December 2019 to 16 January 2020. 946 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
We have not matched this page with any official record.
Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2020, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.

How we build fire pages: methodology ›

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.

Where it burned