Akobo fire, 3 February 2025 Ulang, Akobo
The fire started on 3 February 2025 in Akobo, South Sudan, and satellites saw it burning for 11 days. Copernicus’s global GWIS system rebuilt a burnt perimeter of 15,488 hectares from heat detections, spread across 2 municipalities.
It is the 48th largest in Jonglei since 2016 (of 428 with a page). Number 68 in South Sudan in 2025, of 292.
Compare with…
Suggestions: Ulang · 2018Ulang · 2017Ulang · 2022Akobo · 2021
- Burnt area
- 15,488ha
- GWIS perimeter (Copernicus)
- Duration
- 11days
- 3 Feb 2025 – 13 Feb 2025
- Municipalities hit
- 2
- counties
- Started on
- 3 Feb
- 2025
- Heat detections
- 695
- in a single hotspot: 203 MW
- Danger at start
- 66
- Extreme · FWI index
- Average daily power
- 654MW
- detected power per day, on average
Where it burned
How it evolved, day by day
Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.
The weather it burned in
It had gone more than two months without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.
This area had burned before
96% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 7,003 ha in 2016, 5,855 ha in 2017, 5,075 ha in 2018, 3,574 ha in 2019, 1,009 ha in 2020, 3,694 ha in 2021, 6,338 ha in 2022, 1,877 ha in 2023, 2,111 ha in 2024. Part of it burned more than once, so the yearly figures add up to more than the 14,811 ha that had burned before.
- 5,075 ha Ulang fire, December 2018 8,768 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 3,572 ha Ulang fire, December 2017 35,904 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 2,530 ha Ulang fire, January 2022 9,355 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 1,887 ha Akobo fire, March 2021 5,292 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 723 ha Akobo fire, January 2022 63,860 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 278 ha Akobo fire, January 2023 13,328 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
- 148 ha Ulang fire, December 2016 129,779 ha in total; the hectares shown are those it shares with this fire
How big is it?
London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).
Paris boundary: geoBoundaries · Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière (IGN-F) (Etalab Open License 2.0).
Madrid boundary: geoBoundaries · Open Data ESRI, IGN Central Registry of Cartography Area (CC BY 4.0).
Berlin boundary: geoBoundaries · Federal Agency for Cartography and Geodesy (dl-de/by-2-0).
This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.
What happened to each town
-
11,708 ha reached on 7 Feb2.4 %
-
Akobo where it started3,870 ha reached on 3 Feb0.4 %
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 2025Inside the perimeter there was no noticeable built-up land and almost nobody lived there (GHSL 2025, 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. The GHSL 2025 epoch is a projection made from 2020 and earlier data.
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 | Rain | Danger (FWI) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3 Feb | 40.0 °C | 15 % | 42 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 66 |
| 4 Feb | 38.9 °C | 15 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 52 |
| 5 Feb | 38.9 °C | 16 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 58 |
| 6 Feb | 39.5 °C | 14 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 7 Feb | 39.3 °C | 15 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 60 |
| 8 Feb | 38.9 °C | 16 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 60 |
| 9 Feb | 39.5 °C | 15 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 57 |
| 10 Feb | 39.6 °C | 13 % | 36 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 61 |
| 11 Feb | 39.6 °C | 14 % | 28 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 54 |
| 12 Feb | 38.4 °C | 20 % | 28 km/h | 0.2 mm | Extreme 57 |
| 13 Feb | 39.5 °C | 19 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 55 |
| 14 Feb after | 39.3 °C | 19 % | 25 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 15 Feb after | 38.5 °C | 24 % | 22 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 45 |
| 16 Feb after | 39.3 °C | 19 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 48 |
| 17 Feb after | 40.3 °C | 20 % | 32 km/h | 0.1 mm | Extreme 51 |
| 18 Feb after | 39.4 °C | 24 % | 23 km/h | 0.2 mm | Very high 47 |
| 19 Feb after | 39.0 °C | 19 % | 24 km/h | 0.0 mm | Very high 44 |
| 20 Feb after | 40.5 °C | 12 % | 29 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 53 |
| 21 Feb after | 41.2 °C | 12 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 56 |
| 22 Feb after | 40.5 °C | 11 % | 32 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 57 |
| 23 Feb after | 40.9 °C | 9 % | 34 km/h | 0.0 mm | Extreme 60 |
Before and after, from space
Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.
If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.
The smoke
CAMS · CopernicusOn 8 February 2025 the air beside the fire reached 98 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 50: 3.3 times the WHO daily guideline (15).
Particles from the Copernicus CAMS model at the centre of the perimeter; these are not measurements in each town. The pale bar is the worst hour, the solid one the daily average.
Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS)
Detections table · 695Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.
| Date and time | Satellite | FRP (MW) | Lat | Lon |
|---|
Other fires nearby
Frequently asked questions
- How long did the Akobo fire last?
- According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 3 February 2025 to 13 February 2025 (11 days). The perimeter dates it from 4 February 2025 to 11 February 2025.
- How much area did it burn?
- The perimeter GWIS (Copernicus) rebuilt from heat detections is 15,488 hectares (154.9 km²). It is an estimate: official national figures may differ.
- Which municipalities burned?
- The fire entered 2 municipalities: Ulang (11,708 ha, 2.4 %); Akobo (3,870 ha, 0.4 %).
- What was the weather like?
- During the fire the temperature reached 40.0 °C, humidity dropped to 13 % and gusts hit 42 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 66, 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
History of this page · 2 Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.
- Last day with fire: 11 February 2025 → 13 February 2025.
- Start date: 4 February 2025 → 3 February 2025.
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.
Report an error
How we know this
- Perimeter: GWIS (Copernicus), rebuilt from heat detections rather than mapped on imagery.
- Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 4 February 2025 to 11 February 2025. 695 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 2025, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.
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.