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Yambio fire, January 2022 Ibba, Yambio, Wulu

Out · last detection 10 Jan 2022, 23:18 UTC

The fire started on 5 January 2022 in Yambio, South Sudan, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 13,861 hectares from heat detections, spread across 3 municipalities.

It is the 93th largest in Western Equatoria since 2016 (of 361 with a page). Number 27 in South Sudan in 2022, of 124.

Burnt area
13,861ha
GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
Duration
6days
5 Jan 2022 – 10 Jan 2022
Municipalities hit
3
counties
Started on
5 Jan
2022
Heat detections
420
in a single hotspot: 40 MW
Danger at start
42
Very high · FWI index
Energy released
2.6GW
sum of detected power

Where it burned

10 Jan 2022
HOTSPOTS BY DAY 5 Jan10 Jan

How it evolved, day by day

5678910

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
40km/h · peak gust
14%lowest humidity

It had gone 35 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started. Rain came after the fire: 1.6 mm on 13 Jan.

This area had burned before

98% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 9,025 ha in 2016, 8,988 ha in 2017, 6,295 ha in 2019, 8,057 ha in 2020, 257 ha in 2021. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 13,615 ha that had burned before.

What happened to each town

  1. Ibba
    6,533 ha reached on 4 Jan
    0.7 %
  2. Yambio where it started
    3,953 ha reached on 2 Jan
    0.4 %
  3. Wulu
    3,474 ha reached on 5 Jan
    0.3 %

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)
5 Jan 34.1 °C 14 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
6 Jan 35.5 °C 16 % 31 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
7 Jan 36.5 °C 19 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 48
8 Jan 36.4 °C 16 % 40 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
9 Jan 37.2 °C 18 % 34 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
10 Jan 36.3 °C 21 % 28 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 42
11 Jan after 36.7 °C 22 % 33 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 44
12 Jan after 37.6 °C 17 % 38 km/h 0.0 mm Very high 47
13 Jan after 35.8 °C 28 % 32 km/h 1.6 mm High 27

Before and after, from space

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

Before · 29 Dec 2021
After · 17 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 · 420Every 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 Yambio fire last?
GWIS (Copernicus) dates it between 5 January 2022 and 10 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 13,861 hectares (138.6 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?
The fire entered 3 municipalities: Ibba (6,533 ha, 0.7 %); Yambio (3,953 ha, 0.4 %); Wulu (3,474 ha, 0.3 %).
What was the weather like?
During the fire the temperature reached 37.2 °C, humidity dropped to 14 % and gusts hit 40 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 48, class Very high.
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.